Centre mulls revising PCPIR policy to attract investments

Source: PTI

The Centre is planning to revise the Petroleum, Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR) policy to make it attractive for states to implement it and attract investment. "We are planning to bring certain changes and revise the policy in the next six months," joint secretary to the ministry of chemicals and petrochemicals Avinash Joshi said here on Friday on the sidelines of ICC organised Petrochem 2015. Joshi, who was speaking on the sidelines of Petrochem 2015 organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce, said the policy will be revisited as it did not take off very well since 2007 and to make it more feasible for stateholders to execute. He said among the major revisions would be to scale down land requirement from the present norm of 250 sq km for a PCPIR to 50 sq km. Other demands like financial support, clearances, additional anchor tenant and single window clearances were likely to be incorprated in the revised policy. "We are considering demands of the stakeholders including state governments," Joshi said. Many states like Kerela, Maharastra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh have shown interest. "PCPIR is ideal for coastal states but feasibility study would be carried out for land locked states," Joshi said. Principal secretary to the department of industry of Odisha, Sanjeev Chopra a letter has been sent to the Centre to prepare a standard master plan for PCPIR projects. Joshi said Centre was looking into it how a template can be created for PCPIR but different states have unique problems.

September 18, 2015 | 7:01pm IST.