Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik seem to be locked in an inauguration competition on the IOCl front. However, the BJP or BJD have no contribution for the refinery project, said former Union Minister Srikant Jena at a Press meet here on Sunday.
Notably, Prime Minister Modi will inaugurate the much awaited Rs 35,000 crore refinery project at Paradip on February 7. It is a 15 MTPA capacity oil refinery project. One of the most advanced refineries in the country, the Paradip IOCl unit would cater to the energy needs of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and West Bengal.
The refinery took long 14 years to be completed amid many ups and downs. Overseas partner Kuwait Petroleum had withdrawn from the project keeping in view stiff opposition from locals and State politicians.
But the project was proposed by the PV Narasimha Rao Government in July 1992. A decade later former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had laid the foundation stone for the refinery project in May 2002, said Jena trying to take the credit for the project to Congress. He also said the Manmohan Singh Government had done a lot for the project to take the present shape.
Jena accused Modi of repackaging existing project and offering it as a special presentation to the State. “People are watching all this. They will decide which party or combine (UPA or NDA) served them better,” said Jena. Jena came down heavily on the Modi and Naveen Governments for spending Rs 60 crore alone for publicity.
Jena also said former Prime Minister Singh had announced the setting up of National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) in Odisha in 2006 and inaugurated it at the Institute of Physics in Bhubaneswar. He lamented that again Prime Minister Modi will inaugurate its campus on February 7.
The fight to acquire maximum publicity by leveraging public money is uncalled-for, said Jena.