Mumbai: After immense pressure from ally Shiv Sena and local villagers the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, on Saturday, scrapped the Rs 3 lakh crore worth petrochemical refinery, from Nanar in Rajapur tehsil of Ratnagiri district. Industries Minister Subhash Desai told reporters that the chief minister has signed a file to de-notify the project. Meanwhile, investors mostly from Mumbai, who had invested in lands near the refinery site have lost nearly Rs 800 crore of investments.
Addressing media at Mantralaya, Desai said the project will not be set up at Nanar. “It will be shifted out of Nanar, to wherever people want but not in Ratnagiri. CM has signed the file to scrap the project. The land acquired for this project will be returned to the original land owners, once the final notification is issued in the next few days,” said Desai.
Sources said a few private investors who had purchased lands near the project site after the notification for the project was issued in May 2017, now stand to lose. “The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) – the nodal agency had acquired around 2200 acres land from private investors for this project. These investors had purchased land from local farmers and land owners with the hope of making lucrative profits in anticipation of this project. Many of these investors are individuals from Mumbai and not original local settlers, which was exposed by the locals. These individuals sold to MIDC at the rate of Rs five lakh per acre,” said the source.
He added that the investors were expecting to get compensation as per the official rate given to the original land owners as per the rates given for the Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Corridor. “These investors had expected MIDC and the state to offer them Rs one crore for one hectare or Rs 40 lakh per acre, as compensation for the land acquired. But now that the project has been scrapped, these individuals will make a loss of nearly Rs 800 crore,” claimed the source.