The Cabinet Secretary, Mr K M Chandrasekhar, is to hold a meeting with officials of the Tamil Nadu government on Thursday to discuss the state government’s proposal to set up a ‘Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region’ in the state. The proposed ‘PCPIR’ is coming up on a 250 sq km area near Cuddalore, some 200 km south of Chennai on the coastline.

It is learnt that the state government is seeking ‘viability gap funding’ from government of India (as have the other state that have PCPIRs—AP, Gujarat and West Bengal.)

The state Industries Secretary, Mr Rajiv Ranjan, told journalists here on Saturday that the region had attracted investment enquiries worth about Rs 92,000 crore. Among the larger investors are Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd, which mulls setting up a refinery, possible of 15 million tonne capacity, and Nagarjuna Oil Company, which is already constructing a 6 million tonne refinery.

The meeting with the Cabinet Secretary is significant because once the proposal is cleared at this level, it goes only to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for a formal approval.

The PCPIR policy of the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, Government of India states that the government would “ensure the availability of external physical infrastructure linkages to the PCPIR including Rail, Road (National Highways), Ports, Airports, and Telecom, in a time bound manner.”

The users of the infrastructure will pay for its use, except to the extent that the government supports the service through budgetary resources, the policy note says.

It also says that the government would provide the “necessary viability gap funding” through extant schemes, with budgetary support, if necessary.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW