SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Oct 20: Hindustan Urvarak and Rasayan Limited (HURL) Sindri, the ambitious project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is geared up to conduct the trial production of urea at any time.
Official sources in the Sindri unit said that the plant is ready to conduct a trial and a green signal from Delhi headquarter is awaited for that. ”If permitted, the trial run would be conducted on the auspicious occasion of Diwali,” said the local officer requesting anonymity as the major decision would be announced by the headquarters.
All eyes are on the Sindri unit as the two other units of HURL have already started trial production of urea. Barauni unit (Bihar) kicked start the trial on Wednesday (October 19) and Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) unit had already begun production in February 2022.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stones of Sindri, Barauni and Gorakhpur units of HURL at the cost of Rs 18000 crores in May 2018 from Baliapur airport of Dhanbad. The trio units were expected to be commissioned in three years (by May 2021) but due to Covid and other unavoidable reasons, it got delayed.
Notably, HURL Sindri has lagged among the trio units. At least five dates of the trial run have passed so far but the local management is still uncertain. Even the chairman cum managing director SC Mudekarikar who visited Sindri for the first time on July 21 did not say when the plant would start production.
Sources said that due to the delay in production, the project cost of the Sindri unit has also gone up by more than Rs 2500 crore. At the time of inauguration, the estimated cost of the HURL Sindri project was Rs 6000 crores for producing 3,850 tonnes of neem-coated urea per day. But official sources said that the project cost has escalated to Rs 8,130 Crores.
The Sindri unit, which has come up in place of the closed Fertilizer Corporation of India (FCI), keeps significance for Prime Minister Narendra Modi as FIC was shut down in December 2002 during the BJP government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
