Nanar refinery: CM signs land de-notification proposal

The Maharashtra government Saturday made it clear officially that a Rs 3 lakh crore oil refinery project will not come up at Nanar in the coastal Ratnagiri district.

Shiv Sena leader and industry minister Subhash Desai said that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis signed a proposal to denotify the land which was to be acquired.

As the Sena was opposed to Nanar refinery citing local opposition, Fadnavis, while announcing a tie-up between the BJP and Sena for coming polls, had announced that the project would be shifted.

"The Sena had promised the people of Konkan region that the project will not come up there as long as they were opposed to it. Today we have fulfilled our promise. Even the alliance with the BJP was sealed on the condition that the project at Nanar would be scrapped," Desai told reporters.

The government had issued a notification in May 2017 to acquire 5,932 hectares of land across 14 villages in Ratnagiri district and two villages in Sindhudurg district.

Due to opposition from the local people, the government had stayed the land acquisition process.

"In April 2018, I sent a proposal to the chief minister seeking de-notification of the land that was to be acquired," said Desai.

The file was pending with Fadnavis for long but the chief minister signed it Saturday, he said.

"A gazette notification will be issued by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation to cancel the notification of land acquisition in two days," Desai said.

The Sena was not opposed to the project but to its location, he said.

"If the people in any other part of the state welcome the project, we are open to reconsidering it. But we will have a referendum to find out what people want before the site is finalised," the minister said.

State-run oil majors have tied up with Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company for the mega refinery project.