The Hindu Business Line : Policy on petrochem investment zones outlined

NEW POLICY: The Minister for Chemicals & Fertilisers & Steel, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, flanked by the Secretary, Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, Ms Satwant Reddy, and the President, FICCI, Mr Habil Khorakiwala, during `Roundtable on PCPIR policy', in the Capital on Tuesday. — Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi May 8 The Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday announced the new policy on petroleum, chemicals and petrochemical investment regions (PCPIRs), the first of which is likely to come up before the year-end.

Outlining the new policy, Mr Paswan said, "The PCPIRs would be specifically delineated investment regions with an area of around 250 sq km. The area might include one or more special economic zones (SEZs), free trade and warehousing zones, export-oriented units or growth centres notified under relevant Central or State legislation policy."

The region would have manufacturing facilities for domestic and export-led production in petroleum, chemicals and petrochemicals along with associated services and infrastructure. Each PCPIR will have a refinery/petrochemical feedstock company as an anchor tenant.

Central, state govts's role

According to the policy, the Central Government will ensure the availability of external physical infrastructure including rail, national highways, ports, airports and telecommunication facilities in a time-bound manner. This infrastructure will be created/upgraded through public-private partnerships (PPPs) to the extent possible.

"The various state governments will be responsible for providing infrastructure facilities such as power, water, sewerage and health, safety and environmental concerns. The Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals will be the nodal department and a high-powered committee will be constituted by the Centre to scrutinise applications for setting up the PCPIR and then monitor and expedite the implementation," Mr Paswan said.

Boosting industrialisation

He also said that apart from helping the overall development of the region, the PCPIRs would help in generating employment. "It will give a thrust to industrialisation in the regions by way of setting up of downstream units.

This in turn will lead to development of socio-economic infrastructure in the areas in and around the regions," he added.

According to the Minister, the state governments should ensure that the rehabilitation policy for the families likely to be displaced should be humane.

He added that the Government will make efforts to ensure that the landowner gets his due, while at the same time the process of land transfer, being a complex issue, is directly between the private developer and the landowner as far as possible.

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