Amethi loses Rs 3,650cr paper mill to Ratnagiri

NEW DELHI: The Cabinet will soon decide on setting up a Rs 3,650 crore paper mill in Ratnagiri in Maharashtra and the department of heavy industry has written to the finance ministry on the issue, a minister said on Wednesday.

“We have written to the finance ministry and sought comments from other ministries. Once we receive the views, it will be placed before the Cabinet,” heavy industries minister Anant Geete told TOI. He said the government will wait for the comments before a proposal is sent to the Cabinet.

The plant was earlier scheduled to be set up in Jagdishpur in Amethi, the constituency of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. But it has now been shifted to Ratnagiri after Geete made a demand for the mill in Maharashtra. Geete, a Shiv Sena member, belongs to Maharashtra. The move to fast-track setting up of the plant, which is expected to provide employment to more than 900 people, follows the report of a parliamentary panel which has called for accelerating the project.

The plan to shift the plant to Ratnagiri comes after the government had cancelled the setting up of a mega food park in Jagdishpur.

Rahul had raised the cancellation of Shaktiman Mega Food Park in Jagdishpur in Amethi in Lok Sabha and the party had said that scrapping the project was part of “political vendetta” by the Modi government.

The government had said refusal by the petroleum ministry under the UPA to supply gas at concessional rate in 2013 was one of the reasons for scrapping of the mega food park project in Amethi. Several projects were announced for Amethi and adjoining areas during the UPA regime but several of them are yet to get off the ground.

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Source:TimesofIndia