Petroleum refinery in Barmer's Pachpadra to bring prosperity, provide employment: Gehlot

The proposed petroleum refinery in Pachpadra will bring prosperity to the area and provide employment to the youth, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said here on Thursday. He was addressing a event at Mangla Processing Terminal here to mark the tenth anniversary of commencement of oil production.

Gehlot said his government had laid the foundation of the refinery-cum-petrochemical complex in its last tenure. But the last BJP government delayed the work, causing loss to the entire state in terms of employment and revenue. "Now here will be the first such refinery in the country where the refinery and petrochemical complex will be together. We have decided to pursue this ambitious project in the first meeting of the Cabinet as soon as we came into power.

"The completion of this project will bring further prosperity in the region. Due to setting up of ancillary industries with the refinery, youth will get employment and will get skill development opportunities," he said. Referring to the metamorphosis of the area due to crude oil production, Gehlot said that the per capita income of Barmer district has increased by 650 per cent in the last decade, the highest among the districts of the state.

The per capita income increased from Rs 17,000 to Rs 1.28 lakh in 10 years, which is one-and-a-half times higher than last year's national average of Rs 82,000. Not only this, Barmer's contribution to state's GDP is the highest after Jaipur, he said. Gehlot also asked Cairn India, which operates the terminal, to increase production.

He said the Centre has allocated 10 blocks for the discovery of oil in the state because of the efforts of his government. Efforts should be made to find new oil fields as the entire state will benefit from this, he said.

Currently, the region has about 24 per cent share in the country's oil production, which will be increased to 50 per cent, Cairn Oil and Gas CEO Ajay Dixit said. Revenue Minister Harish Chaudhary, Energy Minister BD Kalla, Medical and Health Minister Raghu Sharma, Mines and Petroleum Minister Pramod Jain Bhaya, Minister of State for Technical Education Subhash Garg, MLAs Mevaram Jain, Ameen Khan, Padmaram Meghwal and Madan Prajapat were also present during the program.

Mangala Processing Terminal was inaugurated on August 29, 2009 by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. So far, 53.2 crore barrels of oil has been produced from this terminal. Currently, 1.75 lakh barrels of oil is being extracted every day.