Revival of Production Units
In the year 2007, due to shortage of domestic production of Urea leading to higher imports and import costs from other countries, the Government of India decided to revive all the production units of FCIL and HCF to meet the overall domestic demand of Urea. The closed units had huge infrastructure facilities like sizable land bank, residential quarters, office buildings, railway siding, tied up sources of electricity and water which also led to the decision of revival. Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) gave in principle approval to examine the feasibility of reviving units of FCIL and HFCL subject to confirmed availability of gas.[7]
In October 2008, CCEA accorded approval to revive FCIL and HFCL units subject to non-recourse to government funding and to consider write-off of government loan & interest to the extent required subject to submission of fully tied up proposal for final decision on waiver.
In November 2008, Empowered Committee of Secretaries (ECOS) was constituted to evaluate all options of revival of closed units and to decide upon the action to be pursued for seeking investments towards revival of each of the unit & recommend to the Government for approval. The ECOS after detailed deliberations recommended that the revival of these closed units would be through ‘nomination route’ by Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and through ‘bidding route’ by private sector.[8]
In August 2011, Government of India decided inter alia awarding individual units to selected parties on a concession basis based on the revival model recommended by ECOS. Talcher and Ramagundam unites were to be revived by PSUs through ‘nomination route' while Sindri, Gorakhpur and Korba Units through ‘bidding route’.[2]
In May 2013, CCEA approved the proposal regarding revival of five closed units of FCIL which included approval of Rs.10,644 crore loan and interest wavier and inter corporate loan of Rs.171 crore.[9]
In June 2013, the Company was deregistered from BIFR, after its net worth became positive in the financial year 2012-13.[2]
Following companies have been registered during the revival of the closed fertiliser units of both FCIL and HFCL in which FCIL is a stakeholder in lieu of land and infrastructure usage:[8]
The revival of setting up of the fertiliser unit at Durgapur, Haldia and Korba is yet to be decided by Government of India.[8]
- 1) Talcher Fertilisers Limited (TFL) - Joint venture promoted by GAIL (31.85%), CIL (31.85%), RCF (31.85%) and FCIL (4.45%) was formed to revive FCIL’s Talcher fertiliser unit in the Angul district of Odisha. The company plans to produce approximately 1.26 Million Metric Tonnes per Annum of urea using coal as feedstock. In January 2023, Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers, said that the plant would be operational By October 2024.[10]
- 2) Ramagundam Fertilisers and Chemicals Limited (RFCL) - Joint venture of NFL (26%), EIL (26%), GAIL (14.3%), HTAS Consortium (11.7%), Government of Telangana (11%) and FCIL (11%) was incorporated in February 2015 to set up natural gas-based ammonia urea complex in
