Hyd soon to have Plastic City

The government is in the process of creating SPV to attract Central funds for the project

Hyderabad: Hyderabad will soon have a ‘plastic city’, if Centre extends its helping hand with the infrastructure development fund. Sources in the industry said that the government is working out to create a ‘special purpose vehicle’ (SPV) to develop the infrastructure required for the plastic industry. SPV is required to get central funds for the project, they added.

“We are expecting the project may be announced after the budget session,” sources said. According to officials, the government has earmarked about 100 acres near Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Maheshwarm Mandal and even the government is preparing detailed project report.

However, the officials are not willing to get quoted, as the subject was broached for a long time, even by the earlier governments. Considered to be polluting industry, the governments are now showing interest to move all the units to a cluster by providing water treatment and other facilities.

According to the industry sources, only about 60 to 70 units are expected to get allotment in the exclusive plastic city. “About 40 per cent of land will go in creating roads and other amenities, hopefully, the government will call for EoI to get land allotment,” a senior member of the plastic industry association told The Hans India.

Considering that roughly about 3,000 plastic factories – small, medium and large – engaged in Hyderabad, it may be difficult to accommodate all in one industrial cluster, hence the industry is asking some more land in other locations, he added.

In fact, the Telangana government has already indentified about 14 thrust sector, and plastics is one among them. The industry expects the government would allot land to those units which are engaged in high end applications like injection mould and industrial engineering, besides flexi packaging units.

The city is already considered as a hub for plastics in AP and Telangana, which is catering to various applications in automobiles and electronics industry. Govt to double per capita plastics consumption Government is encouraging investments in petrochemical sector and plans to double per capita consumption of plastics to 20 kg a person by 2022, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said

"The government has ambitious plans of doubling the current per capita consumption of plastics from the present 10 kg per person to 20 kg per person by 2022," Pradhan said at the 'Indian Oil Petrochemical Conclave 2016' here. This would require setting up one naphtha cracker every year bringing in huge growth opportunities in employment generation and start of new ancillary industries, among others, the Minister noted.

In order to achieve the ambitious target, huge investments are required in next 5-6 years in petrochemical sector, he said. Pradhan further said, capital outlays worth Rs 2,00,000 crore are expected to be made in diverse product lines - in polyester intermediates, polyester film and yarn, polymers and other petrochemicals.

Indian Oil has also planned future investments worth Rs 30,000 crore in various petrochemical streams. When these new projects take shape, the Indian capacity is expected to grow to around 50 MMTPA generating employment for 10,000 people directly and 1 million people indirectly.

These mega projects, when fully operational, are expected to also save huge valuable foreign exchange, thus contributing to fiscal consolidation, he said adding that the public-sector companies have been encouraged to invest in start-ups that will also create jobs.

The Minister also informed that the government is not going to impose any customs duty on crude oil. "The crude oil prices are volatile in nature. We have reduced the fuel prices in the country so many times. However, we are not matching the reduction of prices with the international rates as we want to save funds for infrastructure and road development."