Nagpur: Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has categorically ruled out shifting the proposed Nanar refinery to Vidarbha, saying, “the project can be shifted to Vidarbha only if sea can be brought here”. With this he also kept all the speculations and proposal by BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh at bay.
“It is a west coast refinery project of the central government and not an inland one. Crude will directly reach the refinery through sea. There is no provision for laying pipelines,” he told TOI in an exclusive chat on Saturday.
Ruling coalition partners BJP and Shiv Sena have been sparring over the proposed refinery in the Ratnagiri district of Konkan region. Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray has been opposing the project, citing protests by locals as well as possible threat to environment.
The stand-off escalated when industries minister Subhash Desai, who is from the Sena, had revoked the land acquisition notice without seeking permission from the CM.
Recently, dissident BJP MLA Deshmukh had met Thackeray and proposed that the refinery be shifted to Vidarbha. Thackeray had described the proposal as well studied and offered to support the proposal to hold monsoon session of the assembly in Nagpur if the state government agreed to shift the refinery from Nanar.
On the monsoon session, the CM expressed confidence that it would be held in Nagpur from July 4. Several major parties including Sena are against it. The BJP is keen to hold the monsoon session in Nagpur and hold a budge session in Mumbai next year before the Lok Sabha and state assembly elections are announced. Mostly, the winter session has been held in the city.
On the city bus tangle, Fadnavis said that the government was of the opinion that MahaMetro should run it. “We will issue the necessary orders so that MahaMetro can take over the service,” he said.
Nagpur Smart and Sustainable City Development Corporation Limited, the special purpose vehicle (SPV) of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has passed a resolution handing over the bus service to MahaMetro. The Metro officials have, however, made it clear that they would not run city buses until the state government directed them to do so.
The bus service is a big financial burden on NMC as it incurs a loss of Rs108 crore every year, which has to borne by the civic body. Due to its poor financial condition NMC has not been able to pay the bus operators and the dues have mounted to over Rs30 crore.
MahaMetro, NMC and Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) have been sparring over various projects like Krazy Castle amusement park, Cotton Market mega mall, etc. Fadnavis assured to sort out these issues shortly.
On the delay in the commencement of work on Nagpur-Mumbai communication Super Expressway, Fadnavis said, “There is not much delay. Financial closure of the project will happen next month.”
The Rs46,000 crore project was slated to start in July 2017 and one phase was to be over by October 2019. However, land acquisition problems have delayed it. At present only 77.5% land has been acquired while 80% is required for financial closure.