Fadnavis rakes up stalled Nanar mega-refinery issue, embarrasses MVA

Mumbai, Sep 15 (IANS) Under a vicious onslaught from opposition parties over the Vedanta Group-Foxconn loss, the Maharashtra government on Thursday attempted to corner the Maha Vikas Aghadi by raking up the stalled Nanar oil refinery mega-project.

As Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his team attempted to hit out at the MVA, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis fired a missile from Russia questioning the proposed mega-oil refinery project in Maharashtra which has been stuck for over three years.

"It is disappointing that negative, false, and baseless claims are being spread to gain political mileage (on the Vedanta-Foxconn project shift to Gujarat). This is only to hide their own incompetence," said Fadnavis, hitting out at the MVA.

"I want to ask the Opposition leaders, who sent back the Rs 3.5 lakh crore refinery project from Maharashtra?... My advice to these leaders is to focus on becoming competent and efficient, not negative and desperate," he added.

The oblique reference was to the Ratnagiri Refinery & Petrochemical Ltd (RRPCL) which was planned to be set up at Nanar (Ratnagiri) in 2015, as a joint venture between the Saudi Arabian oil company, Saudi Aramco and India's consortium of oil majors like Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) and Indian Oil (IOCL).

Former MVA CM and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray was opposed to the proposed super-refinery project on 15,000 acres land at Nanar in Ratnagiri owing to stiff resistance from the local farmers and fishers.

In March 2021, Thackeray had announced that in view of strong local sentiments, the mega-oil refinery would be shifted out of Nanar to an alternative site somewhere in Maharashtra.

With a capacity of 60 million tonnes, and 20,000 direct jobs in the complex, the RRPL plant would have been the world's single largest oil refinery complex, but it was plagued by massive opposition from the local communities with several agitations carried out against it in the past.

Commenting on the Shinde-Fadnavis government's charge, Leader of Opposition Ajit Pawar said that they have never opposed any projects including RRPCL, that are in the interest of the state's progress.

As the Vedanta-Foxconn issue boiled, unconfirmed reports suggested that the RRPCL has reportedly issued a deadline to Maharashtra government to take a final call on it or they could scout some other state, but state officials have denied any such development.