Crude oil reserve project was delayed: Himanshu

Jajpur: Dharmasala MLA Himanshu Sekhar Sahoo has alleged a conspiracy for not implementing strategic crude oil reserve project at Dankari in Jajpur district. Sahoo said there was an attempt to change the site of Centrally-funded crude oil reserve project.

“The previous BJD government under various pretexts was delaying the implementation of the strategic crude oil reserve project on the foothills of Dankari under Dharmasala tehasil limits,” he said. He hinted at involvement of black stone mafia behind the delay in the project.

Sahoo has written to Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and sought his intervention to start work on this dream project. Notably, the proposed strategic crude oil reserve was planned by the Union government to be set up in Dankari hill in 2016. This Central project was initiated by the then Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan at an estimated cost of Rs 6,500 crore.

In the 2016 Budget, then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley allocated funds for construction of the strategic crude oil reserve in Dankari. A team of officials from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had visited the proposed site and identified 400 acres of land on the foothills of Dankari for the underground rock cavern in September 2016.

In 2018, the State had ordered for permanent closure of black stone quarries to start the project. However, the local tehsildar had pointed out that the State government would lose about Rs 1,413.86 crore if quarries in Dankari are closed.

The proposed 3.7 million MT depot at Dankari would have stored crude oil stock for 90-100 days to provide petroleum products during emergencies. The project would have created employment opportunities for many people, mostly locals.

The proposed strategic oil reserve is yet to take off even after eight years.