IOC terminal to come up in HP’s Una
DHARAMSHALA: Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan laid the foundation stone of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) terminal at Pekhubella in Una of Himachal Pradesh on Friday.
The proposed facility will come up at a cost of ₹507 crore. Speaking on the occasion, Pradhan said that opening of this terminal will be a new chapter in the history of Himachal Pradesh.
The terminal will cater to 224 retail outlets, 22 superior kerosene oil agencies, 125 consumer pumps and meet the 580,000-kilolitre requirement of petroleum products in the state.
Under advance winter stocking, approximately 90,000-kilolitre petroleum products will be supplied to the Ladakh region as well.
“An underground pipeline will be laid from Jalandhar up to Una and the project will be completed by next year,” Pradhan said.
He added that around 200 trucks will transport the petroleum, oil and lubricants to different parts of Himachal Pradesh from the terminal.
A tender in respect of transportation of petroleum products will be invited and opened in Shimla, he said. “It will also create new employment opportunities in the region,” he said, adding that two LPG bottling plants of around 90,000 metric tons (MT) capacity will be opened in the state.
Meanwhile, HP chief minister Virbhadra Singh said that state government has provided 61 acre of land on annual lease money of ₹1 for the oil terminal.
“It was after long deliberation that the state was able to convince the Centre to open Indian Oil Terminal at Una which will be important from the strategic point of view also,” Virbhadra said, adding that forest clearance for the project was obtained in 2016 and other formalities were completed in a time-bound manner.
“Governments keep changing but the development should not come to a halt,” the chief minister said.
The terminal will not only fulfil the need of petroleum products in Himachal but also be strategic storage point for Indian Army deployed in border regions. Pradhan and Virbhadra also distributed LPG connections under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana to the below poverty line (BPL) families.
The scheme was launched on Thursday in Solan. Transport and civil aviation minister GS Bali, industries minister Mukesh Agnihotri, member of parliament Anurag Thakur and Indian Oil Corporation chairman Sanjiv Singh were among others present on the occasion.
CONG, BJP CLAIM CREDIT FOR PROJECT
Workers of Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came faceto-face at Pekhubella in bid to credit their leaders for the project. While BJP workers chanted “Modi-Modi”, the Congress workers raised slogans in favour of Virbhadra Singh, even as the leaders on the dais tried to calm down the situation.
Both Congress and BJP have been claiming credit for the ₹507-cr project.
BJP chief Satpal Satti had earlier said that Indian Oil Terminal was a centrally sponsored project and state government did nothing in this regard.