By IANS,
Kolkata : Construction work at the Nayachar Island chemical hub project in West Bengal is likely to begin before the coming Lok Sabha polls this year, state Industry Minister Nirupam Sen said Friday.
“We’ve already sent a request to the central government seeking permission to start the project before the Lok Sabha elections. Now we are waiting for the final approval,” Sen told reporters here.
He said the proposal was at the final stage and likely to be passed in the cabinet meeting very shortly.
“There are some stringent norms for setting up a petrochemical project. But we are expecting that the final go-ahead will come from the cabinet committee within two weeks,” Sen added.
To be set up on Nayachar Island, a 12,500-acre plot on the Hooghly river, the chemical hub project got the green signal of a high-powered cabinet committee Feb 3.
The project is a joint venture company in which the state government holds 49 percent stake, with the controlling 51 percent held by a consortium comprising Indian developer Unitech, and two Indonesian firms – the Salim Group and Universal Success.