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UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi laid the foundation stone for Hindustan Petroleum’s 9-million-tonne refinery-cum-petrochemical plant at Pachpadra in Barmer on Sunday.
The project is being set up jointly by HPCL and the Rajasthan Government.
Gandhi was clearly the star of the show as a huge crowd, estimated at nearly one lakh people kept chanting ‘Sonia Gandhi Zindabad’ .
The Congress-ruled Rajasthan will go for Assembly polls in November. The “election mood” was palpable among the audience.
The refinery with an investment of Rs 37,000 crore will create over 25,000 jobs in the region, improving the livelihoods, Gandhi said. Highlighting the welfare measures taken up by the UPA Government through schemes like MNREGA and Right To Education, she said the recent food security scheme will benefit over 80 crore people by giving them access to cheaper foodgrains.
Gandhi also stressed upon the recent land acquisition legislation and said no one can acquire farmers’ land without their consent.
Billed as the second largest project in the Thar Desert after the Indira Gandhi Canal, the refinery is likely to be commissioned by 2018. Initially, the refinery is expected to source about 4.5 million tonnes of crude oil locally from the Mangala oil field in Rajasthan and would import the rest.
But Petroleum Minister M. Veerappa Moily expressed confidence that the refinery would entirely operate on domestic crude oil as production is expected to increase from oilfields such as Mangala and Saraswati. The capacity of the HPCL-Rajasthan refinery could be scaled up to 15 mtpa on the potential of increasing crude oil production in the region, Moily added.
Shale gas policy to go Cabinet this week
The Petroleum Ministry expects to send the shale gas exploration policy to the Cabinet this week.
“We will be sending the shale gas policy to Cabinet in 2-3 days,” said Petroleum Minister, M Veerappa Moily. The proposed policy would allow existing oil and gas explorers to also scour for shale gas in their respective blocks.
(The reporter’s visit to Barmer was sponsored by HPCL)
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