Senior Congress leader Srikanta Jena today slammed BJP and BJD for allegedly competing to take credit for IOCL's Paradip refinery ahead of its inauguration and said the decision to set it was first taken in 1992 during Narasimha Rao government.
"Instead of desperately trying to take credit for the refinery, BJP and BJD must accept that contribution of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to the project is nil," Jena, a former Union minister, told reporters here.
Asking both Modi and Patnaik to present the "truth" before the people, he said though the refinery is slated to be dedicated to the nation by Modi on February 7, major decisions regarding the project had been taken when Congress was in power at the Centre and in the state.
He hit out at the BJD government and claimed that refusal by Naveen Patnaik regime to provide tax and other concessions delayed work by four to five years and cost escalation of Rs 5,000 crore.
He said the Narasimha Rao government had first decided to set up the refinery through a joint venture of IOCL and Kuwait Oil Company in 1992 and the United Front government in 1996-97 decided that its capacity would be 9 MTPA.
During 1997-98 the Congress government of J B Patnaik in Odisha had agreed to extend cooperation and provide facilities including tax concessions for the project, he said adding land acquisition process was also initiated.
Though the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee laid the project's foundation stone in 2000, it was stalled as the Naveen Patnaik regime withdrew facilities and concessions agreed to earlier, Jena claimed.
It was only in 2004 following pressure from Manmohan Singh government that the project came up and was not shifted to another state, he said adding the Odisha government finally agreed to provide necessary concessions.
In 2006, the IOCL board announced start of work and raised the refinery capacity to 15 MTPA and proposed setting up facilities for petro-chemical and other products , he said.
Work was started with the Manmohan Singh cabinet in 2009 approving Rs 35,000 crore for the project, Jena said adding the refinery should have been completed by 2012-13 but was delayed due to non-cooperation by the BJD regime.
Similarly, the foundation stone for the premier National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) had been laid here by Manmohan Singh in 2006 and it started functioning from the Institute of Physics, he said adding the Centre had then sanctioned Rs 823 crore for the new campus.
"Now, BJP is trying to take full credit for NISER whose new campus is also scheduled to be formally inaugurated by Narendra Modi," Jena said.
