The Gujarat government is in no mood to let go on the issue of who is responsible for encouraging Dow Chemicals, a subsidiary of the infamous blame Union Carbide Limited. State minister of energy and petrochemicals Saurabh Patel, who is also a spokesperson of the state government, on Tuesday, gave to mediapersons copies of documents containing details of 11 Dow Chemicals units in the country. He claimed the documents also gave details of the Union government’s role in granting permission for these units.
Patel challenged Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil, who is leader of opposition in the state assembly, to persuade the Congress-led UPA government to close Dow Chemicals’ 11 units and blacklist the company.
Gohil on Monday had handed out to media-persons copies of a letter to show that the BJP government had signed an MoU with Dow Chemicals for investment in state-owned Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Limited (GACL).
“Dow Chemicals has three manufacturing units in the country and eight other sites,” Patel said. “Most of these are in Maharashtra while one is in Tamil Nadu. The Taloja plant in Raigad district was inaugurated in 2003 by former Maharashtra CM Sushil Kumar Shinde while the plant at Lote near Pune was inaugurated by Sharad Pawar.”
Patel said the third major plant of the Dow group is located in Tamil Nadu. “It was inaugurated by Tamil Nadu CM M Karunanidhi, an ally of the Union Government. If the Congress is so upset about the MoU signed between Dow Chemicals and GACL, it should first blacklist the MNC and close down all its 11 units.”
He explained that if the UPA government blacklisted Dow Chemicals, then the MoU which had so upset the Congress would automatically get cancelled. Patel further said that, in 2007, the then chief minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh, had signed an MoU with Dow India to set up a Global R&D centre at Chakan, Pune.
“Not only that, in October 2009, the Congress-led Maharashtra government made Dow India chief executive a Fellow of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences,” Patel said.
