Manmohan Singh

April 8: April may be the “cruellest month” in T.S. Eliot’s book, but it has turned out to be the kindest for Assam with projects integral to the state’s economic growth either seeing the light of day or getting a fresh lease of life.

The Karbi Langpi hydel power project was officially commissioned on Friday after being mothballed for 27 years. Tomorrow, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will lay the foundation stone of a gas cracker unit at Lepetkata in Dibrugarh district, reviving a project that has been hanging fire for over two decades.

Like at Lengery in Karbi Anglong, the site of the Karbi Langpi hydel power plant, the mood is upbeat at Lepetkata.

If the schedule is adhered to, the gas cracker unit is expected to be ready for commissioning in five years’ time.

A mammoth tent has been erected at the project site for the foundation ceremony. The only jarring note has been struck by the Met office at Mohanbari. Rain has been forecast for the next 24 hours, which might keep people away from the function.

The focus of the administration, as usual, is on the security, more so after a blast suspected to have been triggered by Ulfa coincided with the Prime Minister’s arrival to lay the foundation stone of the second bridge over the Brahmaputra.

A team from the Special Protection Group has been helping the police sanitise the project site. Upper Assam Commissioner Hemanta Narzary and deputy inspector-general of police (eastern range) Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta are overseeing the security arrangements.

Three helipads have been marked out for the Prime Minister and his entourage to land near the venue.

Minister Pradyut Bordoloi, who holds the power, industry and commerce portfolios, was visibly buoyant on the eve of the much-awaited event. He described the gas cracker project as one “embedded in the psyche of the Assamese people”.

An exuberant Gogoi said his government had overcome many barriers to get the project off the ground. He said the venture will herald a new economic dawn for the state.

The gas cracker plant was originally meant to come up at Tengakhat, also in Dibrugarh district. Former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao laid the foundation stone there in 1995, but technical objections by the Indian Air Force forced a location shift.

Dispur is in the process of acquiring 3,030 bigha of land at Lepetkata for the Rs 5640.61-crore project without much opposition. About two-thirds of the required plots have already been acquired.

A joint venture company set up by Gas Authority of India Ltd, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Assam Industrial Development Corporation and Numaligarh Refinery Ltd will implement the project. A preliminary estimate by the government indicates that at least 500 plastic-processing downstream industries can be set up on the sidelines of the project, creating job opportunities for over a lakh people.

Delhi has offered huge subsidies to make the project viable. Compensation for land has also been hiked from Rs 40,000 a bigha to Rs 1 lakh, plus 42 per cent extra for farm yield and structures that owners have to forfeit.