Centre to revive Talcher fertiliser plant based on coal gasification technology

Envisages investment of Rs 8,000 cr for the unit with production capacity of 1.3 million tonnes

The Centre has proposed revival of Talcher fertiliser plant in Odisha with an investment of Rs 8,000 crore.

The Union Minister of Chemicals, Petrochemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar on Thursday said foundation stone would be laid in the next 100 days for the proposed plant with production capacity of 1.3 million tonnes.

Kumar, at the sidelines of India Chem 2016, said: ''We will revive through a joint venture comprising RCF, Coal India and Fertiliser Corporation of India. This will be the first ever fertiliser plant to operate on a coal gasification technology. We have abundant treasure of coal on Odisha. We are going to finalise shortly coal gasification technology. Tests are afoot towards that.'' He informed that the revival of Talcher plant will help generate jobs in eastern India especially Odisha.

Kumar said the Centre has already launched the revival of Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Ramagundam (Andhra Pradesh) fertiliser plants while Talcher is on unveil.

''India requires 32 million tonnes of urea a year. We are now producing 24.5 million tonnes leaving a gap of 8 million tonnes. The Centre has also cleared revival of Sindri (Jharkhand) and Barauni (Bihar) fertiliser plants. These five units will produce another 6.5 million tonnes of urea. Besides, the Centre has approved restructuring of Namrup fertiliser plant in Assam. There is proposal for new fertiliser plants in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka,'' he noted.

On the review of policy for the establishment of Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR), Kumar said that his ministry has sought inputs from the industry to fine tune as per the changed situation. ''Key points are the amount of land that is required, the location, infrastructure and logistics, special incentives not only the viability gap funding. Besides, the ministry will review whether we can create tie up between refineries and petrochemicals complexes,'' he added.

On the implementation of GST, Kumar opined that it is not the chemicals, petrochemicals and fertiliser units which will benefit but also the industry and economy as a whole. Excise, VAT, entry, sales tax and all other taxes will be subsumed into GST. There will be no tax on tax, leakage and pilferage and it will be transparent, he said.