Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL) is now ready to cater to the demand for polypropylene, used in the automobile, the textile and the plastic manufacturing industry, in the south Indian market after the Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan commissioned its polypropylene manufacturing unit on Sunday.
Polypropylene is pellets obtained from propylene produced at the refinery when processing crude oil. It is also used while making laboratory equipment, currency notes, loud speakers, stationery items, plastic ropes and bags and parts of motor vehicles.
Speaking at the inaugural function of the unit, managing director of the company H. Kumar said that the annual demand for polypropylene in south India was at 5 lakh tonnes.
The unit inaugurated in Mangaluru on Sunday had a production capacity of 4.40 lakh tonnes per annum. The company would be able to meet the demand as it was the only one in south India to manufacture it.
The unit had been set up at an estimated Rs. 1,803 crore as part of the company’s phase III expansion of the refinery, he said. The Minister said that the government’s intention was to bring more multi-product petrochemical based industries to the Mangaluru Special Economic Zone. Mr. Pradhan requested more employees of the refinery to give up cooking gas subsidy and become a model for others. If more people gave up subsidy its benefit could be passed on to the poor.
A weekend visit to the malls in the city might cost a family Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 1,500. It is equivalent to the annual subsidy amount of a cooking gas customer.
The Minister said that Mangaluru had malls and multiplexes and one could give up gas subsidy by thinking that it was another visit to a mall in a year.
He said that a LPG customer in the country uses six to seven subsidised LPG cylinders a year. This comes to around Rs. 1,500 per annum. If one gave up gas subsidy it would help the government to provide gas connection to poor persons who otherwise use kerosene or firewood.
He said that employees of many corporates, including the Tata Group and Kotak Mahindra Bank, and celebrities like Lata Mangeshkar and Ranbir Kapoor have given up their gas subsidy.
The Minister asked Minister of State for Youth Empowerment, Sports and Fisheries K. Abhayachandra Jain to give up subsidy. When Mr. Jain did not respond and only smiled, Mr. Pradhan said that the Minister was probably hesitating because he was taking orders from the BJP.
He said that even the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ashok Chavan and the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge had agreed to give up the subsidy.