‘Jobs for one lakh people compromised due to BPCL privatisation’

The decision by Bharat Petroleum Corporation, now under consideration for sale by the Union government, to drop the polyols project would be a big loss to Kerala, said former Finance Minister Thomas Isaac. He said Kerala had looked keenly towards cooperating with the public sector BPCL for setting up ancillary units for which a petrochemicals park had been envisioned in Kochi.

A letter to the Securities and Exchange Board of India from BPCL said the board had, at its meeting on January 31, decided to discontinue the polyols project. The proposal for a polyols project in Kochi was approved in September 2018 by the company's board of directors.

The project had moved forward with activities like licensing of technology and related works and appointment of a project consultant. The BPCL management said in its latest decision that the revised cost estimate for the project were much higher than original estimates mainly on account of increase in equipment and material cost. The rise in the cost of the project had "adversely affected the project economics" the board said in its communication with BSE.

Dr. Isaac said the State government had acquired 170 acres for the polyols project as part of the BPCL's Kochi refinery expansion and the State government looked forward to active collaboration with a public sector entity to create jobs and to increase the pace of industrialisation of the State. However, the decision to privatise BPCL derailed the plans as the State government and the region would have little or no link with a private entity. It would have been easier for a State government to collaborate with a public sector company, he said.

He recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation for the ₹11,000-crore polyols project in January 2019 and a total of 170 acres was acquired from Cochin division of Fertilizers and Chemical Travancore. However, the decision to sell off BPCL would be a big setback for Kerala as a whole.

The decision came at a time when India imported polyol products in large quantities. The demand for polyols is around four lakh tonnes a year and it was expected to move up to 7.5 lakh tonnes by 2030. India produced only 15,000 tonnes of polyol products annually and the rest was imported, Dr. Isaac said.

The polyols derivatives units, that were envisioned to come up in Kochi, would have used part of the five lakh tonnes of propylene from the expanded Kochi refinery. BPCL had also paved the way for one of the largest investments in the State with around ₹35,000 crore being pumped into various projects, including expansion and capacity addition at the refinery. It is estimated that around ₹10,000 crore investments and jobs for around a lakh young people would be compromised on account of the decision to privatise BPCL, Mr. Isaac said.

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Printable version | Jun 10, 2022 11:57:22 am | https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/dropping-polyols-project-big-loss-to-kerala-isaac/article65048634.ece