The draft petrochemicals policy which is to be considered by the Cabinet shortly, plans to set up a committee to consider if plastic consumption by certain user industries should be made mandatory. A Task Force is proposed to be set up to draw a roadmap for adding new gas cracker capacities.
This has been prompted by the following two reasons:
India's per capita plastic consumption stands at a low of 4 kg as against the world average of 25 kg. Domestic cracker capacity has remained stagnant in the country (2.5 million tpa of ethylene and 1.9 tpa of xylene for the last about a decade.
As per an initial draft, rich gas (C2C3 fraction) should be reserved for crackers, as consuming this petrochemical feedstock as fuel is wasteful. Even while liquified natural gas (LNG) is imported into the country, a certain percentage of it (the C2C3 fraction constitutes 7-8% of the gas volume), must be earmarked for the petrochemical industry. The proposed policy also suggests de-reservation of production of 83 plastic items from SSIs and a plastic technology upgradation fund for the benefit of the downstream plastic processing units.
05-Jan-06 
{{comment.DateTimeStampDisplay}}
{{comment.Comments}}