Centre nod for Sindri plant revival

Sindri: The Union cabinet approved the revival of three closed fertilizer units at Sindri, Gorakhpur and Barauni on Wednesday. Sources said, the Centre in its meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to revive the plants at an estimated cost of Rs 6,000 crores each.
The government has decided to hand over the assets of the closed fertilizer plants to a consortium of profit-making public sector companies like Coal India, NTPC and IOC on nomination basis.NTPC and Coal India have floated a special purpose vehicle for reviving Sindri and Gorakhpur units of Fertilizer Corporation of India Ltd. (FCI) whereas IOC would be investing for the revival of Barauni fertilizer unit of Hindustan Fertilizer Corporation (HFC).
'As per the decision, the parent company FCI and HFC will get a share of 11% in the new revived unit and the rest 89%share will be held by the promoters for each of the unit which would be making the required investment.
Each of the gas based fertilizer units will have a production capacity of 1.27million tons of urea per annum along with a captive power plant to meet the power requirements on its own. All the three revived fertilizer units are likely to get gas supply from proposed Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline that will be laid by the Gas Authority of India Ltd. (GAIL).
The government has also allocated gas quotas for fertilizer units which will be made available to them at pooled prices to enable them compete globally.
The new fertilizer units are expected to start production within 3 years of the announcement of the zero date. In the meantime, work on laying down the gas pipeline, dismantling of the old plant structure and setting up of the new plant has to be completed.
The news has brought great relief to the residents of this fertilizer unit who were waiting for this news since 2003. Sindri fertilizer unit was declared closed in 2002 when the plant was still in production. The factory was closed during the NDA regime in 2002 and the Congress made it a political issue in the next election by assuring to reopen it. But it is the NDA government again which has decided to revive it, said Deepak Kumar, a BJP leader and secretary of the Sindri chamber of commerce who has thanked PM Modi for this decision.
The farmers of the eastern region were not getting fertilizer on time due to lack of a fertilizer unit in the eastern region, said Ashok Prasad and Alok Banerjee of Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) adding that the decision to revive the closed fertilizer units is actually a good news for the farmers of the region. PM Modi deserves accolades for making the profit-making PSUs invest for the national growth, they added.
President of All India FCI VSS Employees Association Sewa Singh welcomed the decision of the government and appealed the PM to interfere in clearing the dues of the former employees who were made to retire prematurely besides announcing a rehabilitation policy for the former employees and their wards.