Calcutta, Feb 21: The polypropylene circuit of the naphtha cracker plant of Haldia Petrochemical Ltd was commissioned on Monday as per schedule, West Bengal's finance minister Asim Dasgupta told reporters here. HPL chairman Tapan Mitra was also present at the press conference.With the commissioning of the plant, three out of the 12 HPL plants have been commissioned. The other two are a nitrogen and a power plant.
The Rs 5170-crore project located at Haldia in Midnapore district of West Bengal has been promoted by West Bengal Industrial Development Corp, The Chatterjee Group (Mauritius) and the Tatas.
Dasgupta said although the project was initiated in 1977, the Union government cleared it only in 1997. It has been commissioned in record 37 months against the world standard time of 48 months for completion of similar projects.
The finance minister claimed that the downstream industries of the project will create 2.25 lakh jobs. He said a large part of HPL products will be exported. On the domestic front, the project will initially cater to the needs of the state, then to the entire eastern region and finally to the southern region of the country.
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