By IANS,
Bhubaneswar : Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Wednesday sought revival of a closed state-run fertilizer plant in the state to meet the chronic shortage of urea in eastern parts of the country.
Seeking his personal intervention in the matter, Patnaik in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said revival of the fertilizer plant of the Fertiliser Corporation of India Ltd (FCIL) at Talcher in Angul district, about 130 km from here, is an important matter and has remained pending for long time.
“Keeping in view this national asset, I would request you to take immediate steps for its revival,” the chief minister has stated in the letter.
“There is no urea plant in the eastern region and the revival of Talcher plant will go a long way in addressing a chronic shortage,” he stated in the letter.
The coal-based fertiliser unit 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”.
There has not been much progress even though the central government had approved its revival plan few years ago.