Special Correspondent
The Hindu
04 Dec 2005
Company to import feedstock for the Rs. 400-cr. plant; to set up desalination plant
CHENNAI: The Union Ministry for Environment and Forests (MoEF) has given the clearance for a Rs. 400 crore PVC (poly vinyl chloride) plant to be set up by the Chemplast-Sanmar Group at Cuddalore.
Though the project has been on the drawing board for quite some time, the proposal ran into some rough weather on account of protests from environmental activists and Non-Government Organisations. Government officials expressed “happiness” at the “satisfactory conclusion,” considering that the promoters had at one point of time toyed with the idea of shifting the location to Andhra Pradesh.
The technical committees of both the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and the MoEF have gone into all aspects of the project and satisfied themselves with the technology and the precautions taken by the promoters.
According to P. S. Jayaraman, Managing Director, “The feedstock for the PVC plant will be VCM (vinyl chloride monomer), which will be imported. We are setting up a jetty for this purpose. The production will be one-step process and the initial capacity clearance is for 1.40 lakh tonnes, which can be stepped up to 1.70 lakh tonnes.”
He said the company was buying the requisite technology to set up a “zero discharge unit” from Day One. It will not use ground water but set up a desalination plant to process seawater. An 8 MW power plant will be part of the Cuddalore complex, to come up in the SIPCOT industrial estate.
Mr. Jayaraman said now that the MoEF clearance had come, the company would take possession of the land, cleared by the State Government, and “green up” the area. After the preparatory work, the ground-breaking ceremony may be in March-April 2006. “We expect to start up in two years from then.”
The plant is expected to generate direct and indirect employment for about 2500 people, mostly from the local area.