Govt to woo petrochem majors to invest in PMO-backed plan

New Delhi, Jun 2 (UNI) The Indian Government is sending to the US a high level delegation, headed by Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Ashwani Kumar, to make presentations before the CEOs of petrochemical majors like Exxon, Total, BASF, and Bayer for attracting mega investment in the proposed Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Regions (PCPIRs).

A Task Force under the Prime Minister's Office is directly monitoring the PCPIR proposals for the five coastal states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Orissa and Karnataka.

The team to Greenbar resort near Washington which will interact with the Fortune 500 petrochemical majors will include Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Ajay Dua, Secretary Chemicals and Petrochemicals Department, Satwant Reddy, Joint Secretary, PMO Javed Usmani and Joint Secretary, Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, K C Misra.

Besides, senior officials from the concerned State Governments, will also be accompanying the delegation which will try and woo investors in their meeting with the CEOs on June 7.

'' The PCPIRs involve investment of hundreds of thousand crore of rupees in areas extending up to 250 square kilometers. It is the government initiative at the highest level and we will convey it to the world's leading petrohemical company heads'', Mr Ashwani Kumar told reporters here today.

He said these regions would be so big that they would subsume the Special Economic Zones within the PCPIRs.

In each of the five regions, there would be one big anchor unit around which hundreds of related firms can come about. The Centre and the State Governments would ensure connectivity - be it roads, airports etc - again through the private sector initiative. Mr Ashwani Kumar said the availability of land would not be a problem since the State Governments have been taken on board.

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