Govt plans to set up 3 new petrochemical investment regions

Government is considering setting up three new petrochemical investment regions in the coastal areas of Karnataka, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
At present there are four such regions - Dahej in Gujarat, Paradeep in Odisha, Vishakhapatnam-Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh and Cuddalore-Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu. So far they have received about Rs 1.50 lakh crore of investment.
Government is looking to establish new petrochemical investment regions in the country, one each in Karnataka, Maharashtra and West Bengal, a source said.
A Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR) is usually a delineated area of around 250 sq km for setting up manufacturing facilities for domestic and export led production.

In March 2007, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had approved the proposal to set up PCPIRs in four states -- Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu.
Since February 2009, the government has approved setting up of four PCPIRs -- Dahej, Paradeep, Vishakhapatnam-Kakinada and Cuddalore-Nagapattinam. Once fully established, they are expected to attract Rs 7,62,894 crore in investment.

Anchor tenant in Gujarat is ONGC promoted OPal, while in Odisha it is IOCL. In Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu they are HPCL and Nagarjuna Oil Corp respectively.
PCPIRs in Gujarat and Odisha are in the final stages.
As per the PCPIR policy, the Centre has to ensure the availability of external physical infrastructure linkages to these regions including rail, road connectivity to national highways, ports, airports and telecom connectivity also.

The internal infrastructure of the PCPIR is built and managed by a developer. The external linkages will be provided by the central and the state governments. The users of external as well as internal infrastructure will pay for its use.