After months of pushing the Rs 3 trillion Nanar Petrochemical Refinery Complex project in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, the Uddhav Thackeray led government has put it into cold storage to make way for a Pharma-city. The Maharashtra government had denotified the 19,146 hectare land reserved in Raigad district by the former government led by Devendra Fadnavis for the mega oil refinery. The Shiv Sena had been adverse to oil refinery project which was coming up in Konkan with the facility to come up at Nanar. It was cleared by the central and state governments in December 2015. The refinery project was to pass through land spread across 17 villages in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts. The project was to come up as a joint venture (50:50) between Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemical limited (RRPCL), and a partnership between the UAE’s National Oil Company and Saudi owned Aramco. The investors behind RRPCL are Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum. The government had started the process of land survey when it was suddenly shelved over “environmental concerns” presented by Shiv Sena.  When Shiv Sena came into alliance with BJP, it was based on the precondition of shelving of the Refinery project.

Last year, in September, the then  CM Devendra Fadnavis had said that the state government was keen on building Asia’s biggest and first green oil refinery in Konkan. He said that there was no opposition from the locals in the case of moving the refinery to Raigad in Konkan. Fadnavis had further said that the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) was developing an Integrated Industrial Cluster (IIC) at 40 villages in Alibaug, Murud, Roha and Shrivardhan tehsils of Raigad.

The land, earlier marked for the refinery is now being notified as an industrial area for industrial projects and in place of the refinery, a pharmaceutical park will come up in the location. An official of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation had stated that the projected infrastructure cost of the pharmaceutical city is Rs 2,500 crore. The minimum investment expected by MIDC in the pharma-city project is at Rs 30,000 crore.

The state government has a Bulk Drugs Park Proposal. If the centre approves the drugs proposal plan, then Rs 1,000 crore must be provided by the GOI, while the remaining funds will be arranged by the state government. The official further added that the pharmaceutical city would be completely environment friendly. The Bulk Drugs Park will produce basic raw materials such as bulk drugs, key starting materials (KSMs), drug intermediates (DI), and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) that are used to produce medicines including essential medicines. The pharma-city is projected to boost domestic manufacturing of 53 bulk drugs for which the country critically depends on imports.     

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness.