Phillips Carbon Black to reconsider Rs 6-billion investment in Tamil Nadu

The Sterlite Copper episode in Tamil Nadu has forced the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group-owned Phillips Carbon Black (PCBL) to reconsider its proposed Rs 6-billion investment in a greenfield plant in the state. The group is planning to shift its proposed plant to Telangana or Andhra Pradesh.

In last May, 13 people were killed in a police firing during protests demanding closure of the Sterlite Copper plant that, the locals alleged, was polluting groundwater in the area.  “We are now concerned about Tamil Nadu and the way the administration handled the (Sterlite Copper) issue. We don’t want to become a pretext for any other tamasha in the future,” the group’s chairman, Sanjiv Goenka, said.  

As a part of its focus to ramp up its current 0.515-million tonne (MT) capacity, PCBL had planned a greenfield project in Tamil Nadu and was in “advanced discussions with the state government”.