Bhubaneswar: The revival plan of Talcher Fertilizer plant in Odisha has severely been hit by the Coronavirus Pandemic. The travel restrictions and lockdown imposed by the Indian Government has delayed beginning of the project work, posing a question mark over its scheduled commissioning by 2023.
The level of uncertainty over the project has amplified due to the fact that the project work has been contracted to a Chine Company “Wuhan Engineering Company Ltd” based out of the Chinese City of Wuhan, now infamously known as the birthplace of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID19).
Till January, only few pre-project works like site grading, construction of roads and culverts were completed. On 18th January, Wuhan Engineering had begun the Geo-Technical Survey at the project site, but the work has been stalled since then.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2018 had laid the foundation stone for the revival of Talcher Fertiliser plant. The fertilizer plant is being developed by Talcher Fertilizers Limited (TFL), a joint venture company of several PSUs like GAIL (India) Limited (GAIL), Coal India Limited (CIL), Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers Limited (RCFL) and Fertilizer Corporation of India Limited (FCIL).
With an estimated investment of about Rs 13,277 crore the project will have a production capacity of 1.27 MMTPA of Neem coated urea through the gasification of a mixed feedstock comprising of high ash Indian coal and petcoke.
Talcher Fertiliser Limited (TFL) has been allotted northern part of North Arkhapal mine as the captive mine for meeting its coal requirements and petcoke will be sourced from Paradip refinery of IOCL. The project has already secured environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
