KOCHI: Prasad K Panicker, who is retiring as executive director and head of BPCL-Kochi on Tuesday, said the biggest achievement during his tenure was bringing and overseeing over Rs 30,000 crore worth investments to Kerala, bring with it more jobs and affiliated investments into the state.
BPCL's investments included the Rs 16,500 crore-worth Integrated Refinery Expansion Project (IREP), which was the largest industrial project in Kerala. "At one point, BPCL Kochi employed 22,000 persons for the project, which also saw no labour unrest during a project implementation period of 18-20 months," he said.
During his tenure, Kochi Refinery has also stepped in to petrochemical sector and the Phase-I petrochemical initiative is nearing completion. The Phase-II Petrochemical initiative of Polyol Project was also being rolled out.
His tenure saw the visit of the-then PM Manmohan Singh to Kochi Refinery to lay the foundation stone of IREP and the visit of PM Narendra Modi to dedicate IREP units to the nation and lay foundation stone of the Petrochemical Complex.