Gas Cracker project still in cold storage

GUWAHATI, April 1: The much-awaited Gas Cracker Project still remains a distant dream and the State Industries Minister, Gunin Hazarika today blamed the Union government, ONGC and the Reliance Industries for the delay in implementing the project. However, as the date of the State Assembly polls has already been announced, it is sure that the project will not take off before a new Government assumes office in the State. The first hurdle in the way of setting up of the project was cleared after the signing of the has-supply agreement between the Oil India Limited and the Reliance Assam Petrochemicals Limited (RAPL) last year, but the gas supply agreement with the ONGC is yet to be signed. Talking to The Assam Tribune here today, the State Industries Minister said that the gas supply agreement with the Oil India could have been taken as a model for the same kind of agreement with the ONGC. But the ONGC has not shown interest in this regard, he said. Hazarika alleged that the Union Petrochemicals Secretary convened a meeting to discuss the issue last month, but the ONGC did not send a senior officer to the meeting "which proved that the ONGC was not too keen on the project". He said that the Petrochemicals Secretary has given a direction to the concerned parties to finalise the agreement within April. He further revealed that the ONGC has now been claiming that they would not be able to supply the same amount of gas as committed earlier. "The attitude of the ONGC is very unfortunate at a time when the chairman-cum-managing director of the ONGC is an Assamese person", the Industries Minister said. Hazarika said that all the concerned parties should be blamed for the delay in setting up of the project. He pointed out that the Union government initiates some steps only when the state government puts pressure on them. On the other hand, the Reliance Industries as well as the public sector oil industries have also not shown keen interest on the project, he added. On the problem of land acquisition for the project, Hazarika said that the state government played its part and a rehabilitation package for the affected people has already been formulated. However, till date, the Reliance Industries has not deposited the money for the land and claimed that they would deposit the money only when the gas supply agreement is signed, he said.