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MRPL, which had shutdown phase-II and III units last week, has shutdown phase-I unit also due to water scarcity.
With this, the entire operations at Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd have come to a halt.
Mr U.K. Basu, Managing Director of the company, did not receive the call when this reporter tried to contact him. Senior officials in the refinery said that everything is shutdown in the refinery.
They also said that the company approached the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday seeking its intervention to release 2.5 mgd (million gallons a day) of water to the refinery from the River Nethravathi.
When contacted, Dr N.S. Channappa Gowda, Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada district, said: “We will present whatever the storage we have got, and the current input to the dam before the honourable court.” The company has been told that the administration will consider supplying water to it based on the rainfall in the region.
“Drinking water supply to Mangalore is the priority for the administration. At present, we are not supplying water for other industries also,” Dr Gowda said.
It may be mentioned here that Mangalore city gets drinking water from a vented dam across River Nethravathi at Tumbe near the city. To meet its requirement of water to the refinery, MRPL has constructed a weir across the Nethravathi at Sarapady village, upstream of Tumbe.
The company had informed stock exchanges on April 12 that the refinery was receiving around 5.5 mgd from the Nethravathi. Water availability in the river and its downstream dams started depleting from March-end.
As a result of this, Dakshina Kannada district administration enforced reduction of water supply to MRPL. It was completely stopped on April 11.
On Thursday, the company's scrip closed at Rs 65.60 on the BSE, down 1.5 per cent against the previous closing of Rs 66.60.
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