The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Chemicals & Fertilizers and Statistics & Programme Implementation, Shri Srikant Kumar Jena said that the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs yesterday cleared the recommendations of Empowered Committee of Secretaries for revival of five units of Fertilizer Corporation of India Ltd. (FCIL) at Sindri, Talcher, Ramagundam, Gorakhpur & Korba. He told that the Government of India loan and interest thereon amounting to Rs. 10644 crores have been waived off. Further, the inter-corporate loan of Rs. 171 crores and commitment fee Rs. of Rs. 25 crores to FCIL to be given by PSUs involved in the revival of FCIL units at Sindri, Talcher and Ramagundam has also been approved. This would ensure positive net worth for FCIL and enable FCIL to come out of the purview of BIFR, which in turn would speed up the process of revival of closed units of FCIL.
Shri Jena informed that Revival of Talcher Unit will be done by RCF & CIL and ECOS is empowered to decide inclusion of GAIL for revival of Talcher unit. Revival of Sindri Unit shall be done by SAIL while revival of Ramagundam unit shall be undertaken by EIL & NFL.
On the current status of revival of three units by PSUs, Shri Jena told that the Bids for supply of Coal Gasification Plant for Talcher unit and its operation under BOO (Build, Own & Operate) Model is scheduled for opening in the first week of June 2013. The Tender documents for technology supply of Ammonia & Urea Plants at Talcher are ready and would be released once the parameters of the offers received for BOO Model are known. He said that the revival of Talcher unit shall bring an investment of about Rs 7,000 crore to Odisha, generate direct and indirect employment in the State, would help in developing ancillary industry in the region and give a boost to the economy of the State.
Shri Jena further stated that the demand-production gap for urea in the country is projected at around nine million tonne during the current plan period, which is likely to go up further by at an average rate of 2-3% per annum. There is a continuous import dependence of the country to bridge this gap. Furthermore, there are no operating urea units in the States of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal and revival of closed units will ensure availability of fertilizers nearest to the consumption centres contributing to agricultural development in these areas.
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