Dhanbad, June 6: Joint secretary with the Union ministry of fertilisers S.K. Lohani yesterday inspected the now closed Fertiliser Corporation of India (FCI) unit in Sindri, pushing ahead with the Centre's revival plan for the plant.

Also the FCI chairman-cum-managing director, Lohani claimed a fresh tender would be floated in three months, inviting bidders with experience in the field for the project under a public-private partnership (PPP) model.

"The tender will be ready within three months and in all probability, it will be flouted in September-October. The selected agency will have to pump around Rs 6,000 crore into the plant, which is likely to begin production by the end of 2018," he said while interacting with mediapersons after taking stock of the situation on the spot.

The government will provide land, gas, water and other basic infrastructure while the rest will be taken care of by the company, which will be given the responsibility to run the facility, he added.

The FCI CMD said only around 23 million tonnes of urea was being produced in the country as against a demand of 31 million tonnes, forcing the government to spend huge amount of foreign currency every year in importing the fertiliser to cover the gap.

Once ready, the FCI unit in Sindri, with a capacity of 1.3 million tonnes, would help reduce the demand-supply gap.

"The new plant will be based on latest technology and design and run on natural gas drawn from GAIL's Haldia-Jagdishpur project," he added.

Project and Development of India Limited, a design engineering and consultancy firm, has been roped in to prepare a report, including details of the displaced and an estimated cost of rehabilitation.