Billionaire Anil Agarwal said in New Delhi in an interview with with Bloomberg TV India aired today that he has regrets in betting INR500 billion or USD8 billion on an aluminum complex at home. Bloomberg said in its report that India is facing a decline in raw materials supply.

The investor who controls London-based Vedanta Resources Plc said, "I could either invest in Vedanta Aluminium or I could have bought Asarco. If you ask me today, I regret it. I would have done better if I had bought Asarco. It would have been a feather in my cap." Agarwal is referring to U.S. copper miner Asarco LLC.

In 2009, Vedanta lost a bid to purchase Asarco for over USD2.5 billion, which had cheered investors and boosted the company's stock during that time. Vedanta is reportedly running below capacity as it was not able to secure approval to mine bauxite from local tribes in the are Agarwal's company intended to mine.

Agarwal said project approvals in India and impending companies were due to complicated government procedures. Aside from Agarwal, Bloomberg said Naveen Jindal and Kumar Mangalam Birla have also faced project delays in India. Following court-imposed mining ban in two Indian states, Agarwal said his Sesa Sterlite Ltd. (SSLT) witnessed its iron-ore business slump. The Group's inability to secure a bauxite mining permit in the eastern state of Odisha had driven his aluminum unit to incur losses.

In a phone interview, Nirmal Bang Equities Pvt analyst Giriraj Daga said, "Its aluminum project is a dead investment because of lack of raw material. There is no horizon for this business unless they are able to secure their own bauxite."

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Agarwal's net worth is calculated at USD2.8 billion.

When asked by Bloomberg if India is proving to be a more difficult place to do business as compared to elsewhere, Agarwal said, "That's for sure."