BHUBANESWAR: A year after signing of agreement between Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Odisha (IDCO) for developing a plastic park at Paradip, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to ensure completion of formalities for the project.
“The joint venture needs to be ready soon, which would take care of requirements of investors and work on further infrastructure developments,” Pradhan said in a letter to Naveen. He said the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has already obtained the approval of NITI Aayog for a joint venture between IOCL and IDCO.
While a special purpose vehicle in the name of Paradeep Plastic Park has been formed, the Indian Oil Board based on inputs from IDCO has agreed to be equity partner in the project. Besides, Department of Chemical and Fertiliser has sanctioned `40 crore as grant-in-aid to the plastic park for infrastructure development whereas Indian Oil has approved a proposal to infuse `32.72 crore after signing of the joint venture agreement, Pradhan said.
Noting that Indian Oil in collaboration with Odisha Government has conducted several promotional events including road shows in several metros including Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad besides Bhubaneswar, the Union Minister said several investors have shown interest to put up units while six have applied for land in the plastic park. The last such event was held at Surat in September this year where IDCO and IPICOL were invited.
A polypropylene project would be on stream at Paradip refinery by February, 2019 and hence, units at Paradip plastic park can use polypropylene raw materials as feedstock. But if the formalities for the joint venture are not completed, then investments could be affected. “I request you to personally intervene in the matter and instruct the authorities to complete all formalities for joint venture formation at the earliest,” the letter stated.
IOCL and IDCO had signed an MoU at Petrochemical Investors Conclave here in November, 2017 in presence of Pradhan, Minister of MSME Prafulla Samal and Finance Minister Shashi Bhusan Behera. After commissioning a state-of-the-art refinery of 15 million tonne per annum capacity with an investment of `35,000 crore, IOCL has set up a 700 kilo tonne per annum polypropylene unit near the refinery that will be commissioned soon.