Petroleum refinery in Barmer may soon become a reason of political warfare between the Congress & BJP in the election year. Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri has accused the Rajasthan government of dilly-dallying on bearing its share of cost escalation in the oil refinery project being set up in Barmer. The minister said that if the share of cost escalation is not borne by the state government, then its share may be reduced to 16 per cent from 26 per cent. Minister’s statement may stir up hornet’s nest at a time when BJP is finding itself on a weak foot in Rajasthan.
Everybody knows that the upcoming refinery in Pachpadra, Barmer is the dream project of CM Ashok Gehlot. He had made all the ground work and had got the foundation stone laid down from the hands of Sonia Gandhi in 2013. After Congress lost the elections, BJP came to power which is said to have put the project on a back burner in the name of review and in the last phase of its tenure got PM Modi for a ceremony of refinery in 2018. However Gehlot wrote a letter to PM Modi & asked him why was he is re-laying the foundation stone of Barmer refinery as Sonia Gandhi had done so in 2013.
After Gehlot came back to power in Dec 2018 refinery work picked up pace and is now making rapid progress.
