The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) today joined the bandwagon with BJP and BJD to claim that the Congress-led UPA government must get the credit for the Rs 35,000 crore Paradip oil refinery project.
"The Paradip refinery project was solely the contribution of Congress and Congress-led UPA government," OPCC president Prasad Harichandan told reporters here.
Alleging that the previous NDA government at the Centre and the BJD government in the state wanted to dump the mega IOCL project for some reason or other, Harichandan condemned both parties over their struggle to stake credit over establishing the refinery.
"Evidentially these two parties had played almost no role in setting up of the oil refinery at Paradip," he said adding, credit of the project goes to the project-affected families and the people of Odisha.
During the Narasimha Rao-government, the project was conceptualised and a decision was taken to set up a six million tonne refinery by IOCL at Paradip, Harichandan pointed out and said the then Union Minster for Petroleum Captain Satish Sharma had communicated the decision to the then Chief Minister of Odisha.
During Janaki Ballabh Patnaik's rule in Odisha, IOCL released funds for land acquisition and the state government meticulously discharged its responsibilities pertaining to acquisition of 3,345 acres of land at Paradip.
"Even as the foundation stone of the project was laid by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000, in 2002 the then Union Petroleum Minister Ram Naik, in reply to a question of BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahatab, had said due to lack of economic viability, the refinery project at Paradip was not feasible," said Harichandan.
He said while there was uncertainty over the Paradip project, Vajpayee laid the foundation stone of another oil refinery project at Bina in Madhya Pradesh, creating much hue and cry in Odisha.
"Due to utter conspiracy of BJP and BJD, the fate of the project had almost slipped into cold storage," he claimed.
The Odisha PCC president said during UPA-I in 2006, Paradip project was accorded top priority and a cabinet decision was taken to establish a 15-million tonne refinery at a cost of Rs 35,554 crore there.
"And now when the project is complete, both BJP and BJD are trying to take the credit of establishing the project, forgetting token courtesy in politics of thanks giving," he said.
Coming down heavily on BJP, Harichandan said the party was also busy in hijacking the credit of the UPA government in the NISER matter.
NISER was another burning example where it was the UPA government led by Manmohan Singh, which not only sanctioned the project for Odisha, but also gave the money for building its new campus, he pointed out.
