Government framing policy to set up 12 petrochemical complexes

NEW DELHI: Government is working on a policy to establish 12 more petrochemical complexes in order to have one complex in each 16 refineries, a move which could entail few lakh crore of investment, Fertiliser Minister Ananth Kumar said on Friday.

At present, there are four PCPIRs or petrochemical complexes in the country. A Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR) is usually a delineated area for manufacturing various types of petrochemical compounds.

"..instead of four there will be 16 investment regions and we would be able to milk the entire crude to the last drop," the Minister said at the National summit on Indian Chemical Industry organised by Assocham.

"We will try to ensure that these petrochemical complexes will be accompanied by the processing industries," he added.

PCPIRs are currently present in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu.

Speaking at the same event, Chemicals Secretary Surjit Chaudhary said that the government is working on a policy to have at least one petrochemical complex in each refinery which could result in an investment of few lakh crore.

As per the PCPIR policy, the Centre has to ensure the availability of external physical infrastructure linkages to these regions including rail, road connectivity to national highways, ports, airports and telecom connectivity.

The internal infrastructure of the PCPIR is built and managed by a developer. The external linkages will be provided by the central and the state governments. The users of external as well as internal infrastructure will pay for its use.