The government has extended applicability of the ‘New Investment Policy 2012’ for three upcoming units of Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Ltd (HURL) at Gorakhpur, Sindri and Barauni, which are getting revived after several years.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Tuesday approved the proposal of the Department of Fertilisers for extension of applicability of the NIP for these three units, an official statement said.

HURL was incorporated in June 2016 as a joint venture among Coal India, NTPC and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). It is reviving its three closed public sector units by setting up new gas-based urea plants with an installed capacity of 1.27 million tonnes (mt) per annum, each with a total investment of ₹25,120 crore. GAIL is supplying natural gas to these three units.

To start production soon

The Gorakhpur plant in Uttar Pradesh was commissioned in December last year by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is scheduled to start producing its full capacity before June. Meanwhile, Sindri in Jharkhand and Barauni in Bihar may also be commissioned by June as 94 per cent of the projects have been completed. These projects will not only improve the availability of fertiliser to farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha, but also give a boost to the economy in these States with improved infrastructure, the government said.

All the three units have various unique features like blast-proof control room equipped with DCS (distributed control system), ESD (emergency shutdown system) and environment monitoring systems. There is no offsite waste water disposal in these plants. The systems are operated by the highly motivated, dedicated, well-trained operators. HURL-Gorakhpur unit has India’s first air-operated bullet-proof rubber dam of 65 metres length and 2 metres height.

The UPA government had announced the policy in January 2013 to facilitate fresh investment into the urea sector so that the country becomes self-sufficient.