Par Panel for expeditious revival of closed fertiliser units

Taking note of slow progress in revival of eight closed fertiliser units, a Parliament panel has recommended "expeditious" revival of sick and closed units within a fixed time-frame.
At present, all five plants of Fertiliser Corporation of India (FCIL) and three plants of the Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation Ltd (HFCL) are lying closed.
Out of these eight closed plants, Fertiliser Ministry informed the panel that revival of FCIL's Ramagundam and Talcher units has been started.
Besides these two units, the Ministry is considering to revive Sindri and Barouni unit through bidding route and for the Gorakhpur unit it is exploring the feasibility of revival through nomination basis.

"..Expeditious revival of sick and closed fertiliser plants is essential for making India self-sufficient in the fertiliser sector and to reduce imports dependency. However the committee regret to note the slow pace of progress made by the Government in the revival of these sick fertiliser units," the standing committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers said in its report.
India's urea output has remained stagnant at 22 million tonnes (MT) since 2007-08. The current demand is about 30 MT, forcing the nation to meet shortfall of 8 MT via imports.
New greenfield urea capacity has not been added in the country for over a decade now.

As a result of revival of these closed eight units, the estimated increase in production of urea in the country will be 1.30 million tonnes (MT) per annum per unit, the panel said.