Northeast India’s lone fertilizer company on the verge of locking up doors

Naharkatia, May 9, 2019:

North East's only surviving company, the Brahmaputra Valley Fertiliser Corporation Limited (BVFCL) at Namrup in upper Assam's Dibrugarh district is on the verge of locking its doors.

The state government that has brought investors from around the country in the form of 'Advantage Assam' could not prohibit the downfall of the Nagaon and Cachar Paper Mill and neither has it helped the BVFCL.

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Despite many protests, the fourth unit of the BVFLC was not set up. The first, second and third units were set up in the year 1969, 1975 and 1989 respectively. As these were set up many years back, the production capacities of the units have decreased as the life span of these units are only 15 years and in absence of a fourth unit, the company production is steeply decreasing.

Even in 2006, the then Union Minister of Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Ram Vilas Paswan announced schemes for the development of the company but the nothing was done.

The government approved the setting up of an 8.646 metric tonnes per annum unit and modelling the joint venture as a public-private partnership on May 5, 2015, the center could not make any attractive impact to investors as only two parties participated in the bidding process. But they are yet to submit any proposal.

Following this, the government agencies initiated the restoring process and set up the joint venture for the fourth plant. In order to revive this, the Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers and Oil India Limited took stakes of 52% and 26%, and the Assam government and the BVFCL shared stakes of 11%, as a measure to set up the new unit. The entire project cost Rs 4,500 crore and failing to generate any fund, the plant lies without any development

During the 2014 general elections, Narendra Modi then included the establishment of the fourth unit in PM Narendra Modi’s 100-day programme but nothing has happened on the ground so far.