Expedite revival of closed, sick fertiliser plants: Par panel

Expeditious revival of sick and closed fertiliser units is essential for making the country self reliant in the fertiliser sector, a Parliament panel has recommended.
There are seven public sector undertakings (PSUs) in the fertiliser sector having total of 23 manufacturing plants, and of which nine plants are closed.
At present, all five plants of Fertiliser Corporation of India and three plants of Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation Ltd (HFCL) are closed for some time. One plant each of BVFCL and FACT is also temporarily closed.
"The committee are of the view that expeditious revival of sick and closed fertiliser plants is essential for making India self-sufficient in the fertiliser sector and to reduce imports dependency," the standing committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers said in its report.

India's urea output has remained stagnant at 22 million tonnes (MT) since 2007-08. The current demand is about 30 MT, forcing the nation to meet shortfall of 8 MT via imports.
New greenfield urea capacity has not been added in the country for more than a decade now.

The report also pointed that slow progress has been made by the government in the revival of these units so far, which leads to time and cost over-runs.
"..The committee recommend that the process of revival of closed units of fertilisers be expedited with in a fixed time frame," the report said.

Meanwhile, government is already working on to revive closed fertiliser plants, a joint venture has already been proposed for the revival of FCIL's Talcher plant, whereas work has already been going on for revival of its Sindri, Gorakhpur and Ramagundam plant.
Besides, the government is also working on revival of HFCL's Barauni and Durgapur plant.