Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate the Assam gas cracker project on Friday. (Press Trust of India photo)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate on Friday the Rs 10,000 crore gas cracker project in Assam.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate the Assam gas cracker project on Friday. He will be accompanied by the Fertiliser Minister Ananth Kumar and Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan," a source said.
This is the first ever petrochemical project in entire North East India and was a part of the historic Assam Accord signed on 15th August, 1985 to promote overall socio-economic development of the region.
In 2007, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had laid the foundation for the project at Lepetkata near Dibrugarh in Assam.
For establishing this project, a joint venture company called Brahmaputra Crackers and Polymers Ltd has been formed.
GAIL is the main promoter with 70 per cent stake, while Assam government, Oil India Ltd and Numaligarh Refinery have 10 per cent stake each in the company.
The project is established with an investment of Rs 10,000 crore, out of which Rs 5,000 crore has been provided in form of subsidy by the Central government.
The project will manufacture high quality of polymers with annual capacity of 2.80 lakh tonnes per annum including 2.20 lakh tonnes of polyethylene and 60,000 tonnes of Polypropylene per annum.
These polymers can be used for manufacturing plastic furniture, PVC pipes and other packaging material.
Project will provide directly or indirectly employment to 3,000 people. Once the downstream industry also established in the nearby areas of the project the manpower requirement could cross 20,000, the source added.
The project is expected to generate scope for substantial investments in setting up of downstream plastic processing industries.