The state-owned Industrial Infrastructrue Development Corporation (IDCO) chairman-cum-managing director, Priyabrata Patnaik, told reporters that the Union secretary urged the state government to provide land, water linkage and power supply besides other required infrastructrue for the project.

… The PCPIR project, which is going to spread over an area of 250 square kilometers at Paradip with the Indian Oil Corporation’s (IOC) oil refinery as anchor tenant, is expected to attract investment to the tune of Rs 2,75,000 crore.

The major chunk of investment, about Rs 23,000 crore, will come in petroleum and petro-chemical sector.

The project will generate employment opportunity for more than 2 lakh people when it is fully commissioned.

Following are some pointers on PCPIRs.

• Slides on the scheme.

The port project called Adani Kalinga Port is to be developed in two phases at a distance of three km from Jatadhari Muhan, the proposed site of Posco India’s captive port in the state’s Jagatsinghpur district.

… The proposed port which would have 12 berths in all will handle coal, iron ore, liquid and containerized cargo.

… Besides the port, the Group plans to invest in other sectors in the state like power plant, edible oils and mining.

 

Following is an excerpt from a PTI report in Business Standard.

Ahmadabad-based Adani Group is keen on setting up a large port in Orissa coast and developing an industrial zone, including a power plant, at mammoth investment of Rs 98,000 crore.

A company delegation led by its Managing Director Rajesh S Adani met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here and made a presentation in this regard.

The company informed the state that it was interested in setting up a 100 million tonne capacity port in Jagatsinghpur district, near Paradip Port and a proposed captive port by Posco.

With an initial investment of Rs 5,000 crore, the company has proposed to start the first phase of the Rs 10,000-crore port project in 2013-14 and complete it by 2015-16.

It also has plans to set up an industrial zone close to its proposed port in Jagatsinghpur an investment of Rs 88,000.

…The company plans to send coal after mining at Talcher area, to Gujarat and Maharashtra from the proposed port.

"The coal will be sent after washing. The washery reject coal will be utilised for the proposed power plant," a company official said. The proposed power plant would be a part of the industrial zone.

Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), the country’s largest oil marketing company is exploring the possibility of setting up a wind mill in Paradeep (Orissa). The wind mill is likely to be operational either in or after 2012. …

The company has already set up two wind mills in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu”, V Ramgopal, general manager (marketing), IOCL told reporters here.

… IOCL was planning to set up a new depot at Jharsuguda in western Orissa at an investment of about Rs 100 crore. The proposed depot would have the capacity of around 60,000 kilo litre (KL).At present, the company is scouting for 35-40 acres of land for this modern depot. Plans are also afoot to deepen the reach of LPG cylinders among the people in Orissa.

Presently, only 18 per cent of the state’s population has LPG connections and we are aiming to extend the LPG connections to 50 per cent of the population within the nest two years, Ramgopal informed.

IOCL was planning to launch the LPG Gramin Vithark scheme in the state to reach out to the rural customers.

About eight lakh people in the state have LPG connections with Hindustan Petroleum being the market leader in this segment with 4.2 lakh customers followed by IOCL at 3.6 lakh, said Ramgopal.

• Bhubaneswar development authority (BDA) plans 1st satellite city at Jagasara-Madanpur; taking lessons from NOIDA. http://bit.ly/8xBnc 
• Rungta mines plans Rs 600-cr cement unit in Orissa. Economic Times. http://bit.ly/3kxe0H7.
• Beautiful beaches in and near Talasari, Balsore District, Orissa. A nice article in Telegraph. http://bit.ly/ISbBn.
• Orissa Sands Complex, at Matikhala near Chhatrapur in Orissa is expected to have a captive power plant. http://bit.ly/aglpH .
• Infosys to invest 600 cr for new facilities @ Mangalore, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram, Chandigarh & Bhubaneswar this year. http://bit.ly/WKjtt.
• http://www.odisha1.com has released tools for learning Odia and provides links for Odia Entertenment.
• Excellent resource on Poet Sri Jayadeva of Orissa. http://www.jayadevfoundatio… He wrote Geetagovinda.
• Superior health care at Nandankanan Zoo in Barang near Bhubaneswar, Orissa. http://bit.ly/qVB5h.
• An excellent blog tracking the progress of Berhampur, Orissa by R. P. Tripathy. http://futureberhampur.blogspot.com/.
• ITC plans hotel in Bhubaneswar, Orissa. Already has land. http://bit.ly/HVrz0.
• I&B ministry gives nod to Community Radio Station (CRS) at Konark, Orissa. http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k9/july/july296.php.
• The Orissa govt. plans a ‘bamboo garden’ on 15 acres inside the Patrapara Medicinal Plant garden in Bhubaneswar.
• Toy making from paper pulp empowers tribal women in Orissa http://bit.ly/1afm0K.
• Bhitarkanika in Orissa shortlisted with 3 others to be presented to UNESCO for world heritage status. http://bit.ly/svKqD.
• PIB: Captive breeding centers for Vultures set up at 4 Zoos: Bhopal, Bhubaneswar Orissa, Junagarh and Hyderabad. http://bit.ly/iYPfg.
• Swosti Plaza Bhubaneswar upgrades. Free airport pick up and drop off. Wi-Fi in rooms. Upgraded health club. http://bit.ly/6mUFg. Swosti Plaza Bhubaneswar upgrades to Swosti Premium. http://bit.ly/6mUFg.
• SRPL plans to launch restaurant brands like Oh! Calcutta, Sigree and Machaan in Orissa by March 2010. http://bit.ly/afzPN.
• Orissa has 8 large and 38 medium reservoirs. Work on 16 reservoirs is in progress. Rs 230.4 crore budget for this. http://bit.ly/109dUK.
• Apollo will be commissioning a 350-bed multi-speciality tertiary hospital at Bhubaneswar before September this year. http://bit.ly/wzae2.
• MP Baijayanta Panda has introduced several private bills. A good step. http://164.100.47.132/lobte….
• Orissa yet to submit final proposal on PCPIR in Paradeep? http://bit.ly/p1YiM.
• Rs1462 crore for Orissa to raise tree cover in degraded forest land. http://bit.ly/UPltI Money had accumulated through CAMPA.
• People blindly opposing industrialization of Orissa should read http://www.counterpunch.org… Orissa needs more job ops.
• Orissa has proposed 4 sites for international size shipyards. http://bit.ly/HJ6DA. Those sites are: Astaranga (in Puri), Palur, Gopalpur and Bahuda muhana/Sonepur (all in Ganjam).
• Next yr Rail budget should have the new trains Bhawanipatna-BBS, Gunupur/Parlakhemundi-BBS and the extension of BBS-Baripada to Bangiriposi.
• MP Tathagat Satpathy wants BBS-NDLS non-stop express to go through Talcher-Angul. How will it benefit his constituency Talcher-Angul?

Following is from a report in Economic Times:

Union minister of state for chemicals and fertilizer, Srikant Jena on Sunday said the fertilizer plant at Talcher, 126 km from here would be revived with an investment

of Rs 12,000 crore. It provided direct and indirect employment to 30000 people in the area.

“The government will appoint consultants to suggest the modalities to raise finance, identify appropriate technology to revive the closed fertiliser unit at Talcher”, Mr Jena told ET.

The union government already had decided to revive Talcher plant. In fact, last October the Cabinet had set up an Empowered Committee of Secretaries under the chairmanship of Fertiliser Secretary Atul Chaturvedi to come up with possible financial models for the revival of the closed plants at Talcher, Barauni, Haldia, Ramagundam, Durgapur, Gorakhpur, Korba and Sindri.

The Talcher plant had liabilities of over Rs 4000 crore and assets worth of Rs 225 crore. “The liabilities comprise of mostly loans from the government of India and interest on loans. This can be waived once all the modalities of revival are worked out. We propose to expand its capacity to 12 million ton per annum [TPA].

Commercial production of Ammonia and Urea at the Talcher unit commenced in November 1980. Urea and Ammonia plants have been designed with a capacity to produce 4.95 lakh and 2.97 lakh tpa respectively.

However production of Urea and Ammonia was first suspended from April 1, 1999 due to its economic non-viability. In 2002, it came to grinding halt after the NDA government decided to close the unit following BIFR sanction.

Last year, the union government decided to renew Talcher unit and consulted with the companies like the Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers and National Fertilisers. It even decided to put in an investment of Rs 5,000 crore in the project in view of the ambitious target of production of 40 million tpa of urea by 2012.

… RCF is the only profit making public sector fertilizer company which has evinced interest to take over Talcher and Durgapur (West Bengal) Fertilizer plant for revival. In fact, the feasibility report on Talcher had already been submitted to RCF.

The revival plan included proposal to convert Talcher plant from a coal based urea plant to a gas-based urea unit with capacity to produce 2000 ton of ammonia per day. There is no problem of water in Talcher, non-availabilty of gas remains the biggest hurdle in the way of reviving the plant. There is no source of gas nearby.

The proposed gas pipe line to be laid by Reliance Industries carrying gas from Krishna-Godavari basin to West Bengal via Bhadrak in Orissa could be the solution, sources said. However, the ministry will take a final view after the consultants submit detailed report on the financial model and technological options available for the revival of the Talcher unit.

Following is from a report in Pioneer:

Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Srikant Jena has to push a few major projects for Orissa, feel industry watchers. One of the largest projects waiting for clearance is the Petroleum, Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR) project at Paradip.

The State Government has proposed a PCPIR expecting an investment of Rs 2.75 lakh crore.

While PCPIRs have been approved for Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, the fate of Orissa’s proposal for it is still hanging. The PCPIR policy, notified in April 2007, seeks to ensure adoption of a holistic approach to the development of global scale industrial clusters in the petroleum, chemical and petrochemical sectors in an integrated and environment-friendly manner.

The Government of Orissa has taken the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) as the anchor investor. The IOCL is investing nearly Rs 30,000 crore for a greenfield refinery project at Paradip. The PCPIR proposal is, however, gathering dust in the files of the Ministry. So, it is high time Jena pushed the project to the Union Cabinet for approval by convincing the Cabinet-rank Minister MK Ajhagiri.

With this single clearance, Paradip will be in a position to attract huge investments in the petroleum, petrochemicals, fertilisers and other related areas. Similarly, Jena can push for the establishment of a NIPER (National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research) in Orissa.

Indian Oil Corporation has tied up finances for its Rs 29,777 crore Paradip refinery project in Orissa that would be commissioned by March 2012.

"We have received commitments from a consortia of banks," IOC Chairman Sarthak Behuria said.

SBI Caps, which was mandated to arrange Rs 14,700 crore debt for the project, has managed Rs 14,900 crore from 21 banks. State Bank of India (SBI) will be the largest lender with Rs 4,200 crore exposure.

IOC was likely to sign loan agreements with the consortia of banks on May 14.

"We will draw (from these loans) as and when we need them," he said but did not give details.

IOC is targeting commissioning of the refinery in first quarter of 2012. The board had recently split the refinery cum petrochemical complex into two, deciding to do the refinery first and the chemical unit will follow later.

Paradip refinery is being configured to process the toughest, heaviest and the most dirtiest crudes which are cheaper than the cleaner and easier varieties. The refinery will have a Nelson Complexity Index of 15.

Posco Pratirodha Sangram Samiti … PPSS fielded its sarpanch candidate Mr Sisir Mohapatra and PS member candidate Mr Prakash Jena in this panchyat election. Mr Mohapatra is working as secretary of PPSS while Mr Jena has been languishing in Kujang jail since seven months after his arrest on Posco violence issue. PPSS candidate Mr Mohapatra has defeated his rival candidate Mrs Salila Nayak, wife of former sarpanch late Basant Nayak by margin 73 votes .Mr Mohapatra has got 2005 votes while Nayak has got 1932 votes.

Similarly, PS member candidate Mr Jena has also defeated his rivalry candidate Mr Nrusingh Das by 282 votes in which Jena has got 1672 votes while Mr Das has got 1390 votes. Sarpanch candidate Mr Nayak and PS member Mr Das who were defeated from this seat was backed by Posco supporters.

On the other hand, Zilla Parishad candidate Mr Saubhagaya Behera who was contesting as independent candidate has defeated his rival congress candidate Mr Rupakar Sethy by 995 votes. Mr Behera has got 6742 votes while Mr Sethi has got 5767 votes.

Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. has awarded a contract to Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd. and Foster Wheeler (GB) Ltd. for a grassroots refinery to be built in Paradip, Orissa state, India.

Foster Wheeler will manage the project for the major part of the development of the new 15 million tonne/year refinery and will also execute the engineering, procurement, and construction management for 15 of the key refinery process units, plus offsites, utilities, and infrastructure.

Foster Wheeler’s scope includes the crude distillation units, reforming, alkylation and butane isomerization units, plus significant offsites, utilities, and infrastructure. Commissioning of the project is expected during 2011-12.

• Approval of Chakulia-Buramarra line with an estimate of 468 crores.
• Proposal of a line via Banki for goods trains. (A line from Naraj to Banki to Khurda will form a circular Railway around greater Bhubaneswar.)

Following is an excerpt from a report in Business Standard.

Indian Railways has planned major infrastructure facilities like freight nodal points, container park and a coaching complex to cater to the proposed Petroleum, Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Region in Paradeep.

… Mr KC Jena chairman of Railway Board said that “Paradeep is poised to emerge as one of the major industrial hubs in Orissa and it is also the site for the proposed PCPIR in the state. A master plan is being prepared for the Paradeep region and according to this plan, the Railways will set up infrastructure facilities like freight nodal points, container park and a coaching complex.”

Mr Jena said that the Railways is also committed to boost connectivity in the Paradeep region which includes the 82 kilometer Paradeep to Haridaspur broad gauge line, being taken up at an investment of INR 577.78 crore. East Coast Railway has acquired 1,146 acres of private land out of the total of 1,653 acres of land required for the project. This project being implemented by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited is scheduled for completion by March 2011.

… On the 290 kilometer Khurda Road to Bolangir project, Mr Jena said that “Work is already in progress for the first 36 kilometer stretch of the project and the fund for the second phase of the project is likely to be sanctioned in this year’s railway budget.” He added that the project had suffered delay due to land acquisition problems and a fast track committee for railway projects formed under the chairmanship of the Orissa Chief Secretary was making efforts to expedite the process of land acquisition.

Mr Jena added that the overall outlay for the various railway projects in Orissa stood at INR 1,049 crore in 2008-09, compared to INR 764 crore in the previous fiscal and the sanctioned figure excludes the projects being implemented by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited.