By IANS,
Talcher (Orissa) : The central government has decided to revive the closed fertiliser unit in Talcher at an investment of Rs.12,000 crore, Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Srikant Kumar Jena said here Thursday.
The coal-based fertiliser unit here, some 130 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar, had a capacity of producing 495,000 tonnes of urea and 297,000 tonnes of ammonia per annum and was closed down in 1999 due to “economic non-viability”.
“The cabinet has already given its approval to the revival plan. We hope to revive the unit within next two years,” Jena said.
The revival plan includes a proposal to convert the coal-based Talcher plant, owned by Fertiliser Corp of India, into a gas-based unit.
“We will procure gas from GAIL directly. We are also trying to get coal blocks for the unit,”the minister said.
Earlier, the Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises had submitted a proposal to the government to revive several closed plants spread across different states.
Presently, seven public sector fertiliser units – Haldia, Talcher, Ramagundam, Durgapur, Gorakhpur, Korba and Sindri – are non-functional for several years.
Jena, however, did not say anything about the other closed units.