GUWAHATI, April 27 - Observing all health protocols, Numaligarh Refinery Limited has resumed work at its capital projects in Assam worth over Rs 2,000 crore which had come to a standstill due to the lockdown.
Work has resumed in the three major projects � the biorefinery project at Numaligarh, work on the office building, etc., in Guwahati and the Indo-Bangla pipeline project at Siliguri.
Presently around 350-400 workmen have been engaged for the biorefinery�s 2G ethanol plant, which will further increase as the project picks up. The biorefinery is being built at a cost of Rs 1,750 crore.
The estimated cost for the India portion of the Indo-Bangla pipeline is Rs 61 crore.
�The projects are estimated to generate 6.8 lakh man-days and estimated monthly payment to workers is around Rs 2.5 crore,� NRL MD SK Baruah said.
Official sources said work on the construction projects had come to a standstill a month back when the lockdown was announced. However, the Central government has allowed commencement of construction works since April 20.
�Refinery operations were not hampered during the lockdown as it is exempted under the essential services and they were carried out in two/three shifts. However, construction activities had come to a standstill,� the sources said.
Administrative functioning was work-from-home and with less than 50 per cent of the staff. �We are also resuming work on other smaller projects for which manpower is being mobilised. Progress is picking up each day,� they said.
Work on the biorefinery had commenced six months back and is expected to be completed towards the end of next year. It will be the first biorefinery in the world that will produce cellulosic ethanol and bio-based chemicals from bamboo while producing green power as byproduct for local use.
Numaligarh Refinery Limited, Finland�s Chempolis Ltd and Finnish energy company Fortum 3 BV had established a joint venture Assam Bio Refinery Private Limited in 2018 for building and operating the biorefinery.
The biorefinery will use 300,000 tonnes of bamboo annually from the vast natural and cultivated bamboo reserves of Northeast India. The plant will produce annually 60 million litres of bioethanol, 19,000 tonnes of furfural, 11,000 tonnes of acetic acid, and 144 gigawatt hours of green energy.
