Forbes India – August 4, 2017

By Varsha Meghani

With Vedanta buying a majority stake, Hindustan Zinc

has gone from deep losses to becoming the World’s

second largest zinc producer

Beneath the surface

August 4, 2017 forbes india | 51

a

100-tonne truck

emerges from pitch

darkness and rumbles

past us. Outfitted

with helmets, rubber

boots and fluorescent

overalls, we’re seated in an SUV,

waiting to plunge into the same abyss.

Around us hills dot the dry landscape.

We’re at the mouth of Sindesar

Khurd, an underground zinc-lead

mine operated by Hindustan Zinc in

Dariba on the outskirts of Udaipur

in Rajasthan. About an hour ago, a

blasting had been carried out in the

500-metre deep mine. The truck

that crossed us had scooped up the

broken rock and was on its way to a

nearby mill where the zinc-lead ore

would be separated from the waste.

This extraction of zinc and

lead—and silver as a by-product—is

a thriving business; one that has

catapulted Hindustan Zinc from deep

losses, when it was a government

run-entity, to huge profits after Anil

Agarwal’s Vedanta Ltd (formerly

Sesa Sterlite) bought its first tranche

of the company’s shares in 2002.

Last fiscal, the company—29.5

percent of it is still owned by the

government—reported earnings

before interest, tax, depreciation

shotcrete being sprayed

inside the sindesar

Khurd mine to prevent

the falling of small rocks

after a blasting