Vedanta says contributed $4.66bn to Indian exchequer in 2019-20

DIVERSIFIED natural resources firm Vedanta Resources has said that it contributed $4.66 billion to the public exchequer in India during 2019-20.

It added that its overall contributions to public exchequers of various countries stood at $4.7bn during the period, Vedanta Resources said in its latest report.

"Consistent with our commitment to building on transparency, we present our fifth tax transparency report. During 2019-20, our contribution to exchequer was $4.7bn, which accounts for 40 per cent of our consolidated turnover," Vedanta Resources chairman Anil Agarwal said.

Most of this amount goes to India as majority of the groups business operations are located in the country.

The company paid $1,398 million towards royalties to the state governments of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka based on extraction of bauxite, lead-zinc, iron ore, crude oil and natural gas.

Vedanta has also formed an internal 'tax council' which acts as an overarching governing body to the tax function as a whole.

The company said that it has adopted guiding tax principle to maintain high standards of integrity with respect to tax compliance and reporting.

In the last seven years, Vedanta has contributed $46.4bn to the exchequer which constitutes to around 39 per cent of the company's consolidated turnover.

The company claimed that Vedanta is the 'only' corporate in the country to come out with such a report that breaks down key components like economic value generated, taxes paid and contribution by each of the businesses.

"The direct economic value of $12,475m has been generated during the year," the company said.

Vedanta Resources is engaged in the exploration, production and sale of zinc, lead, silver, copper, aluminium, iron ore and oil & gas and has presence across India, South Africa, Namibia, Ireland, Australia, Liberia and UAE.

The group is also in the business of commercial power generation, steel manufacturing and port operations in India and manufacturing of glass substrate in South Korea and Taiwan.