M'lore: Govt to speed up ONGC promoted SEZ

Bangalore, Aug 3: Work on the ONGC anchored Mangalore Special Economic Zone (SEZ) will commence early next year with the Union Environment Ministry expected to clear the project by the end of December this year, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram today indicated.

Speaking to newsmen after a review of the infrastructure and major investment proposals in Karnataka Mr Chidambaram said that timelines had been set up for various processes to enable the ONGC, the anchor Company start bidding for projects from 2007 January.

The review was the second to be conducted by the Union Government to hasten the progress of infrastructure projects and to enable steady flow of investments in public-private partnership initiatives, Mr Chidambaram said. The first one was held in Hyderabad recently involving projects in Andhra Pradesh, The Prime Minister would be reviewing various projects, including those relating to agriculture and vidharba pattern rehabilitation packages to farmers in the evening along with Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.

Mr Chidambaram expressed satisfaction over the progress of work in various projects thus far and said certain timelines had beet set for the Central Government to complete its part of clearances, and at the same time Karnataka Government also agreed to adhere to timelines set for it.

Besides the Mangalore SEZ, the review was carried out on the Bangalore Metro rail project, Bangalore International Airport, Upgradation of Mangalore airport, Development of Mysore Airport, Capacity expansion of New Mangalore Port, development of greenfield airports in Hassan, Gulbarga, Shimoga and Bijapur and four power projects being executed by the Karnataka Power Corporation Limited-- The varahi extension hydel project, first and second phase of Bellary thermal plant and the Raichur thermal plant.

ONGC has already floated a special purpose vehicle for the Rs.30,000 crore project in which it would have a 26 per cent equity, the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) would have 23 per cent and the Balance 51 per cent to be held by the Kanara Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS).

The total investment envisaged for development of various projects by ONGC and its subsidiary, Mangalore Refinery And Petrochemicals Ltd, in the SEZ is around Rs 35,000 crore.

The main projects that would be developed in this SEZ are: a petrochemical complex, a liquified natural gas regasification plant, C2-C3 extraction from this regasified LNG, a power plant to cater to the power requirement of all units in the SEZ and general industry, trade, banking, telecommunications and allied services for supporting the activities of the units in the SEZ.

Mr Chidambaram said that under the time line fixed today, the State had to handover 268 acres of land to the Company by September 15 and the KIADB should complete acquisition process for 2262 acres by November 30. Meanwhile the Ministry of Environment had called for an environmental impact study of the project which it should receive before September 30 and then the Ministry would clear the project by December 31 to enable the Anchor company take the project further ahead.

Mr Chidambaram said the Karnataka government, in addition to 20 agenda points listed out, had proposed new schemes including funding of certain new Public-public private partnership projects under the new Project Development Fund of the centre, opening of defence held airports in Bidar and Karwar to civil aviation and Central funding of Waste water treatment plants for domestic and industrial consumption on the lines of desalinisation plants.

He said the Defence Ministry had already accorded sanction to operation of civilian flights from both Bidar and Karwar and the Airport Authority of India was to take up necessary work for infrastructure creation.

He said Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy had also mentioned about the Rs.4,200 crore project for state highway development sent to the Government of India for World Bank funding. He said the Ministry of Finance was currently evaluating the project and a decision would be taken shortly.

Mr Chidambaram said that the meeting was very useful and certain decisions were taken immediately. The minutes would be drafted and monitoring of the decisions would be carried out by the Chief Minister's secretariat in the state level and his Ministry at the Government of India level.

Mr Kumaraswamy in his opening remarks welcomed the initiative of such reviews and hoped that the meeting would set milestones in respect of various projects that would come under review. He urged the Centre to include Hubli-Dharwad and Mangalore under the JNNURM scheme. Similarly, he also asked for additional funds in the eleventh plan for development of tier two and tier three cities such as Mysore, Hubli-dharwad, Hassan, Mangalore and Shimoga, emerging potential growth centres, for investments and employment. These cities required large scale infusion of funds for upgradation of infrastructure, he added.

UNI