No decision taken on oil refinery plant location in Maharashtra, says Puri

Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday said the Centre has not taken any decision to set up an oil refinery project in any specific area in Maharashtra.

Speaking to reporters in Chandrapur, he said the state government will have to discuss the project's location with the Central government.

He alleged the erstwhile government (in Maharashtra) had allocated land for the project but later refused under the pretext of changing the location, which derailed the project.

"Following this, the state (Maharashtra) and the country faced huge economic losses in the last two-and-a-half years," Puri alleged.

Puri was apparently referring to the Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemical project, proposed to be built at Nanar village in Ratnagiri district in coastal Konkan, but it was scrapped before the 2019 polls at the insistence of Shiv Sena, the then alliance partner of BJP.

Establishing a 60-million metric tonne per annum oil refinery will be the biggest plant in the world, Puri ...