Kolkata, May 13 (PTI) The greenfield expansion project of city-based manganese alloy producer Maithan Alloys Limited at Bankura in West Bengal is on hold due to a lack of statutory approvals from both the Centre and the state, a senior company official said on Thursday

The company is also restructuring its entities and the board has approved the composite scheme of arrangement in which real estate and ancillary business will be demerged from Ma Kalyaneshwari Holdings to another group company and then it will be merged with Maithan Alloys.

"The expansion project is in cold storage as we have not yet received environmental clearance from the Centre and water connection approval from the state government for the last 18 months," whole-time director and CEO of the company, Subhodh Agarwal, told PTI.

Maithan Alloys was planning to set up a 1,20,000 tonne unit at Bankura, 206 km from Kolkata.

The company manufactures Ferro Manganese, Silico Manganese and Ferro Silicon from its plants at Kalyaneshwari (West Bengal), Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and Ri-Bhoi (Meghalaya).

Pointing out that brownfield expansion had been ruled out, the company was scouting for inorganic opportunities besides greenfield expansion, the official said.

Meanwhile, the board has also approved a 60 per cent dividend after its robust fourth-quarter results.

The company posted a 32 per cent rise in profit in the Q4FY'21 period ended March to Rs 84.5 crore. Total revenue was also up by 23 per cent to Rs 499 crore during the quarter. PTI

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