After months of shut down, Zuari Agro Chemicals Ltd restarts ops at one of its three plants in Goa

PANAJI: Zuari Agro Chemicals Ltd restarted one of its NPK plant at Zuarinagar and has resumed production after the Centre’s Department of Fertilizers released some of the subsidy, a company official said here on Monday.
ZACL stopped operations of its Urea and Ammonia plant on July 4 after a leakage was reported in the Ammonia plant. Later the NPK-B plant was shut down from April 27 except for a five-day period in September, due to the lack of funds to purchase raw material and natural gas.
Subsequently, the NPK-A plant was shut down.
“The plants could not be started because of non-availability of natural gas, owing to non-payment of dues to Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) and other key raw materials, which was due to liquidity issues, mainly arising due to delay in release of subsidy by the Department of Fertilizers (DoF) in earlier quarters and its consequential impact,” said a company official on condition of anonymity.
The delays in release of subsidy impacted the company's ratings as SACL was unable to meet its repayment obligations.
“I am very relieved that ZACL has restarted the operations of one of its plants which means that so many workers are going to be secure about their jobs. The subsidy that was overdue was released that enabled the company to move forward,” said Cortalim MLA Alina Saldanha.
The drought in certain parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka also affected the company as it was unable to pass on the increase in the prices of the raw materials to farmers, the official said.