Govt plans chemical hubs to boost industry

The Dollar Business Bureau

The government plans to establish chemical hubs across several states, and to set up Central Institute of Chemical Engineering and Technology (CICET) on the lines of Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology (CIPET) to cater to the demands of chemical industry.

India already has 22 refineries, and it plans to create chemical hubs state by state. “We have decided in the ministry that we are going to make all the 22 refineries in the country as nerve centres, and petro-chemical complexes, crackers will come around surrounding them so that we can handle infrastructural, environment and logistical issues together,” said Ananth Kumar, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers.

The government will set up five CICET centres, and CIPET will operate as a mentor organisation.

“We have one for plastics like CIPET for the chemical and petro-chemical industry, we are now going to start CICET. To being with, we will start with five centres and to make this happen speedily, CIPET would be the mentor organisation and these institutions will be developed in a kangaroo manner," said Kumar.

Speaking at the launch event for India Chem 2016 on Friday, he emphasised that India needs to undertake adequate measures to become a producing economy, also in chemical and petro-chemical sector. India Chem 2016 will be organised on September 1-3 in Mumbai.

Highlighting challenges to the expansion of chemical industry, Kumar said getting clearances from the environmental ministry for the establishment of a brownfield industry, not even for a greenfield industry, would be the biggest obstacle.

To address this, all the chemical industry players need to come forward and assure that they will adhere to the parameters to safeguard the environment, and that there would be no compromise on environment projection.

Kumar assured the industry leaders that the government is committed to address all the challenges including the abysmal infrastructure. "We are going to provide you adequate infrastructure like railways, highways, water, communication and coordinate between the union and state governments,” he said.