Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had laid the foundation stone of the Paradip IOCl Refinery Project on May 24, 2000. The project will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November next, after 14 years.
It is now a golden chance for the NDA Government to take credit for the project. After the devastation of Paradip by the Super Cyclone in October 1999, the area needed rehabilitation and development. Vajpayee had visited Odisha in 2000 for laying its foundation stone, which he had said would bring enormous growth to the area.
That project was a joint venture of the Indian Oil Corporation limited (IOCl) and Kuwait Oil Corporation limited. Its budget estimate was Rs 8,000 crore and was scheduled to be commissioned in March, 2005.But land acquisition and administrative hiccups had delayed the project beyond the schedule. In 2005, the refinery project changed to a Crude Oil Stores Centre. The crude oil imported through Paradip port was programmed to be stored at Paradip and was pumped to IOCl’s Haldia and Barauni oil refineries.
But in 2008, Sarthak Beuria of Odisha who joined as the Chairman of IOCl had made efforts to revive the original refinery project, which was later named as IOCl Paradip Refinery Project (PDRP). Further, the Kuwait Oil Refinery limited withdrew its share from the PDRP.Despite the jolt, in 2008, IOCl Chairman Beuria tried to restart PDRP once again. The UPA Government approved the project with a mega budgetary provision of Rs 29,777 crore and PDRP was to be commissioned in September 2013 with a target of production for 15 million tonnes.
It was to be the 11th refinery project of the IOCl from March 2008. The construction work started speedily with latest technology. But due to continuous labour unrest, local people’s agitation and Phailin ravages, the project was delayed again.
The next probable date of commissioning was chosen as March, 2014 and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were supposed to inaugurate it. But due to similar problems, the IOCl could not complete the project by the date. Interestingly, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has been ruling in the State since the foundation stone of the project was laid.