IOC gets clearance for Rs 30 bn coker plant at Haldia

KOLKATA: Indian Oil Corporation has received clearance from the ministry of environment and forest for installing its proposed Rs 30 billion delayed coker plant at Haldia in West Bengal, reports Economic Times.The company said that about 82 acres has already been acquired from Hindustan Fertilizer Corporation (HFCL).

However, the entire 82 acres will not be required and plans include setting up a petrochemical plant. The IOC board will be working on the exact quantum of investment for the plant. Shares of the company closed up Rs 0.95, or 0.24%, at Rs 396.75. The total volume of shares traded at the BSE was 34,655 (Friday).

Political feud within Ghani Khan family

KOLKATA: “I have been stabbed in the back,” failed aspirant for the Congress ticket from West Bengal’s Malda North constituency, Abu Naser Khan Choudhury, brother of A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury, said on Thursday.

He was talking to The Hindu after learning that he was denied nomination, losing out to his niece Mausam Benazir Noor, who would be contesting the seat in the Lok Sabha elections.“The image of our family which continues to have a magnetic influence here has been tarnished; my niece is too inexperienced for the task ahead and my brother, Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury, is shattered by this decision of the Congress High Command,” he said over telephone from the family’s ancestral home in Kotwali near Malda.

Dynastic politics has taken a toll. The Khan Choudhury family has enjoyed popular support in large parts of Malda, the likes of which not too many other families are known to have had in West Bengal. It is attributed to A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury, local icon and undisputed strongman of the Congress in the district when he was alive.

“We, the rest of the family, are all beneficiaries of my brother, A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury’s popularity. But today there is anger within us, I am angry for having been replaced by my niece,” Mr. A.N. Khan Choudhury said. His other brother, A.H. Khan Choudhury, is the president of the district unit of the Congress and will be contesting from Malda South. He held the Malda seat in the previous Lok Sabha.

Mr. A.N. Khan Choudhury’s nomination for the Malda North — the other new constituency that has emerged following delimitation of Malda — was seldom in doubt by local leaders. But before he could present a verification document to the poll authorities, the party nominated his niece.

West Bengal offers Nayachara Island for KoPT dredging

Kolkata, Mar 26 (PTI): The West Bengal government today offered Nayachar Island for disposal of silt for dredging the navigational channels of Kolkata Port Trust to overcome the dumping ground problem.At a high level meeting in New Delhi today, the state government had offered Nayachar Island but Dredging Corporation of India and KoPT officials said it was not a viable option due to technical reasons.

The high level meeting in New Delhi was held by a senior official in the Cabinet Secretariat in presence of Union Shipping secretary, West Bengal Chief Secretary and KoPT Chairman to discuss port issues, sources said. A separate meeting would be held at the state secretariat with DCI and KoPT to resolve the issue, they said.

It was decided in the meeting that 10 additional pilots would be provided to Haldia Dock Complex shortly to tide over the pilot crisis, sources said. The meeting also attempted to know and find solution to long wait of vessels at the sandheads.