Principal Secretary of the Commerce and Industries ministry Sabyasachi Sen said the state has sent its proposals regarding the new location to the Union Chemicals and Petrochemicals ministry.

“They will study the proposal and present it before the Board of Approval headed by the Cabinet Secretary,” Sen told reporters. The board has already got no-objection letters from five of the 13 departments that are its members. Approval from the other departments is expected any moment.

Sen said four states with coastlines are bidding for the PCPIR — Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. “We are hopeful of getting the final approval very soon,” he said.

After last year’s violence in Nandigram — the initial choice of the area for two special economic zones (SEZs) including one for chemicals — the government had been forced to look for alternative locations and decided on the area around Haldia and the riverine island of Nayachar off Haldia.

In February this year, a joint venture had been formed between the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) and the New Kolkata International Development Pvt Ltd (NKID), a special purpose vehicle between Indonesia’s Salim group and the state government.

The land department has handed over the 54 sq km Nayachar island to the industries department, which has given permission to a new joint venture company, APC Ray Chemicals Pvt Ltd, to go ahead with soil testing and a feasibility survey. “As far as I know, they are already doing the job and will submit their reports soon,” Sen said.

Nayachar island, formed by siltation, had been given to the fisheries department in 1988.

Following this, the state’s fisheries department had used loans from the Centre to promote several fishery projects on the island. Now, the department has asked the Commerce and Industries ministry to release nearly Rs 20 crore so that it can repay the loans. “No final decision has been taken regarding this, but we hope to come to a settlement with the fisheries department soon,” a senior official of Commerce and Industries said.

The government had commissioned a committee headed by Subir Raha, an oil industry expert and former head of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), to study the feasibility of Nayachar. The Raha committee, in a report filed in January, had given the go-ahead, industry department sources claimed.