RIL to invest Rs 2,500 cr in MP

Reliance Industries (RIL) will invest Rs 2,000 crore for laying down methane gas pipelines in Satna, Mahiya and Shehdol in Madhya Pradesh. The company will also invest Rs 500 crore for opening 75 outlets of Reliance Fresh in Madhya Pradesh.

This was revealed by MP's minister of industries Babulal Gaur during his visit to Ahmedabad on Friday. He was in Gujarat to meet chief minister Narendra Modi and seek his support for investments in Madhya Pradesh.

According to Gaur, who visited the Reliance refinery in Jamnagar, he had a telephonic talk with Mukesh Ambani and the company has proposed to invest Rs 2,500 crore in MP for laying down a pipeline network and in retail operations.

"The memorandum of understanding is likely to be signed during the forthcoming two days' business summit being held on January 15 and 16 at Khajuraho," Gaur said.

Gaur also said the state was eyeing investments of Rs 1,00,513 crore within the next one-and-a-half year. According to the government, this investment will come under manufacturing, service, infrastructure and power sectors.

Of these projects, production has already started in manufacturing sector and service sectors worth Rs 1,636 crore. While infrastructure and manufacturing projects worth Rs. 29, 303 crore are under implementation. A sum of Rs 69,574 crore was likely to be invested in manufacturing, service and power sectors.

About the Bina Refinery project, Gaur said after 10 years the refinery project by Bharat Petroleum Corporation is under implementation.

"The project is under implementation after 10 years. Investment of Rs 10,300 crore will be made in the project. After the completion of the project, Bina town will become a second Bhopal," he added.

Giving full credit for the revival of the project to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Gaur said, "It was made possible to really implement the project only with the support of PM. We had allotted 4,000 acres of land for the project. However, the company was asking for the tax relief and the central government was not ready to give them the demanded consentives. The project was likely to go to Chennai but because of PM's timely interference the project has finally kicked off. PM has allowed the company to pay its taxes after three years after it starts production."