Fertilizer minister reviews progress of three upcoming urea projects of HURL

NEW DELHI, 15 August 2020: Indian minister of chemicals and fertilisers, D V Sadananda in Gowda reviewed the progress of three upcoming projects of Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Limited (HURL) at Gorakhpur, Barauni and Sindri in New Delhi recently.

HURL managing director Arun Kumar Gupta gave a brief presentation on progress of all the three projects, and said that Gorakhpur, Sindri and Barurani projects have achieved 80 percent, 74 percent and 73 percent progress so far.

However, the projects have been affected due to lockdown, travel restrictions, unavailability of laborers and so on. Situation has now improved and sufficient manpower, although lesser by 20 percent than pre COVID level, have been mobilized to resume the work at all the three sites. 

Although there could be delay in commissioning by five to six months from scheduled deadline, he assured that all the three projects would be commissioned by end of the next year.

Gowda said that aggressive catch up plan must be prepared to compensate for the delay emanating from challenges due to COIVD-19. 

He suggested that video conferencing may be used to connect with consultants from foreign countries as travel restriction is expected to continue for some time and appreciated efforts of the management of HURL for resumption of work at their sites.

Once the three projects are commissioned by end of next year, domestic capacity would increase by 38.1 Lakh MT, thereby would increase Atma Nirbharta in urea production. Commissioning of these projects will bring benefits to the nation in terms of reduced import dependency, saving of foreign exchange, generation of hundreds of direct and indirect jobs, tax receipts for Government etc.

Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Limited (HURL) was incorporated on 15 June, 2016 as a joint venture company by Coal India Limited (CIL), NTPC Limited (NTPC) and Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) as the lead promoters with Fertilizer Corporation of India Limited (FCIL) and Hindustan Fertilizer Corporation Limited (HFCL) as other two partners.

Through HURL, government is reviving three closed urea plants of FCIL and HFCL at Gorakhpur, Sindri and Barauni, each having annual capacity of 12.7 Lakh MT.