Hindustan Copper to invest Rs 1,856 crore in MP mine project

KOLKATA: Hindustan Copper, the country's largest state-owned copper company is planning to invest Rs 1,856 crore in the Malanjkhand Copper project at Madhya Pradesh.

A memorandum of understanding on this was signed between K D Diwan, chairman-cum-managing director of Hindustan Copper Limited (HCL), and Arun Kumar Bhatt, managing director, MP Trade & Investment Facilitation Corporation Ltd (TRIFAC), government of Madhya Pradesh at the Global Investor Summit 2012 at Indore earlier this week.

The project envisages facilitation of the proposed investment of Rs 1,856 crore in Malanjkhand, where the company wants to construct an underground mine of 5 million tonne facility. It is the single largest copper deposit of India and is estimated to have around 221 million tonne of reserves.

The MoU will enable HCL to obtain necessary clearances, concessions and waivers for the Malanjkhand underground mine project from the state government. The MoU documents were exchanged between Mr Diwan and Mr P K Dash, additional chief secretary, commerce, industry & employment of Madhya Pradesh in the presence of the state's chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and industry minister, Kailash Vijayvargiya. Mr Diwan had attended the Global Investor Summit 2012 between October 28-30 as a guest of honour at the invitation of Madhya Pradesh state government.