New Delhi: Barauni Plant of Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Limited (HURL) commenced urea production on Wednesday, said an official statement. "The country has achieved another milestone by setting up a new ammonia urea plant at Barauni which has started urea production yesterday. The state-of-the-art gas-based Barauni Plant is part of the initiative taken by the Government to revive the closed urea units of Fertilizer Corporation of India Ltd. (FCIL) and Hindustan Fertilizers Corporation Ltd (HFCL) in order to achieve self sufficiency in the urea sector," it added.
The revival of closed units of FCIL and HFCL had been the top priority agenda of the present government to augment the availability of domestically-produced urea. The government mandated Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Limited (HURL) to revive Barauni unit with an estimated investment of Rs 8,387 crores with urea production capacity of 12.7 LMTPA.
HURL, incorporated on June 15, 2016, is a Joint Venture Company by Coal India Limited (CIL), NTPC Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and FCIL/HFCL. It is mandated to revive Gorakhpur, Sindri and Barauni units with an estimated investment of Rs 25,000 crore. The start of all three plants of HURL will add 38.1 LMTPA indigenous urea production capacity in the country and will help to realise the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make India 'Aatmanirbhar' (self-reliant) in urea production, said the statement.
It is one of the largest fertiliser manufacturing units of India for which the foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The project will not only improve the availability of fertiliser to farmers but will also give a boost to the economy in the region, including the development of infrastructure like roads, railways, ancillary industry etc, besides ensuring food security to the nation.
HURL plants have various unique features like state-of-the-art blast-proof control rooms equipped with DCS (Distributed Control System), ESD (Emergency Shutdown System) and environment Monitoring Systems etc. It also has India's First Air Operated Bullet Proof Rubber Dam of 65 metres length and 2 metres height. There is no offsite waste water disposal in these plants. The facility integrates the world's best technologies aiming to meet the demand for urea in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha. Apart from urea supply, the project will also help to develop small and medium scale industries/vendors around the manufacturing unit. There will be a lot of entrepreneurship activities around the hub and it will further boost employment generation. The operation of plants will make the country self-reliant in urea fertilizer, lead to savings in Foreign Exchange due to reduced import and will also be a giant step towards Atamnirbhar Bharat. It may be noted that the Gorakhpur plant of HURL was already commissioned in December 2021 and the Sindri Plant is likely to be commissioned shortly.
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