The status of progress made in re-opening of the closed and sick fertilizer units were given by the Minister of State for Chemicals & Fertilizers Hansraj Gangaram Ahir in Lok Sabha on Monday. Various units are at different level of operations and are progressing in a time-bound manner, added the Minister.
Talking about the pre-project activities for revival of Talcher unit by the nominated PSUs namely, RCF, CIL, GAIL and FCIL Ahir said that activities are afoot to set-up a coal-based fertilizer plant. Selection of coal gasification technology is in process. The project is likely to be completed by end of 2018.
About other units of Fertilizer Corporation of India Limited (FCIL) and Hindustan Fertilizer Corporation Limited (HFCL) such as Ramagundam Unit (Telangana), Sindri unit (Jharkhand), Gorakhpur unit (Uttar Pradesh), Korba unit (Chhattisgarh), Barauni unit (Bihar), Durgapur and Haldia units, the Minister informed the House that these would resume production of fertilizer sooner than later.
Readers would recall that in view of the continuous losses Government decided to close down all five units of FCIL viz Talcher (Odisha), Ramagundam (Andhra Pradesh, now Telangana), Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh), Sindri (Bihar, now Jharkhand) and Korba (Madhya Pradesh, now Chhattisgarh) and three unit of HFCL viz. Barauni (Bihar), Durgapur & Haldia (West Bengal) in 2002.
After closure of units, there was no significant addition to the indigenous urea production capacity. However, the demand increased steadily, this had led to a situation where the country had to depend upon import of urea.