Thursday, November 30, 2006

Japanese ship detained at Jamnagar

Customs and Excise department personnel at Jamnagar have detained a Japanese ship, which was brought for ship-breaking, after its owners' 'failed' to provide necessary documents, sources at Customs department said on Saturday.

The ship has been detained after the Surat-based Steem Company, which had purchased it for breaking, failed to provide custom clearance certificate, sources said.


sources said that the ship was not allowed entry there duo to lack of documents

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Brip

Onether Mig Crash Near Jamnagar

On Tuesday, November 21  A MiG-29 fighter of the crashed near the airbase in Jamnagar .
 
The pilot, Flight Lt Krishna Kant, ejected to safety.  "Barring some minor injuries, the pilot is safe and he is being taken to the IAF hospital for treatment," an official source said.

The crash occurred at around 7.45 pm (IST) in the vicinity of Sarmat village soon after the jet had taken off for a routine night sortie.

This was the third MiG-29 that crashed this year. The IAF has lost a total of five jets since January.  This was also the third crash this year at Jamnagar involving Russian-made fighter jets. On June 8, a twin-seat trainer version of the MiG-29 with two pilots had crashed on the uninhabited Pirotan island while on a routine sortie. Both pilots had ejected to safety.

On January 17, a MiG-21 crashed during target firing practice at Jamnagar. The pilot ejected to safety.

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Brip

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Hotelier Held for Rape

Hotelier Held for Rape,
 
Kishor Talatia (Owner of local Suryakant Hotel), was arrested on Wednesday on the charge of abducting and raping a minor girl, The 15-year-old victim, a resident of Gulbahar village in Dahod district, had lodged a complaint on Monday with police against Talatia.

According to complainant, the accused enticed her by offering her bus fare to Dahod against a day's work at his hotel. Later, he took her on his motorcycle to the bushes near Ghanteshwar restaurant on Jamnagar highway and raped her.

The girl had come to the city with her husband Gordhan and mother-in-law to work at a construction site on Gondal Road. On November 7, she ran away after getting beaten up by her husband.
 
She didn't have enough money to buy a bus ticket to return to her parents' home in Dahod. It was then that she had come across Talatia. The police have framed charges against him under section 36/76, 363 and 343 of IPC as well as Atrocity Act.

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Brip

Monday, November 13, 2006

Jamnagar - Reliance SEZ cleared by Supreme Court

Special leave petition of Shah Kantilal Depar and others challenging the land acquisition procedure by the district collector for Reliance Industries' Jamnagar SEZ is dismissed  by the Supreme Court.  With this order, the apex court disposed off the petition filed by farmers challenging the High Court order. The High Court had dismissed their plea against the decision allotting the land to the company in five villages of Jamnagar district.

The farmers had alleged that of the 10,000 acres of land acquired by the state government for Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Infrastructure's proposed SEZ, 9,000 acres was farm land.  The Supreme court bench headed by K G Balakrishnan dismissed the SPL subject to the rights of compensation payable to the farmers under provisions like Section 23, 24 of the Land Acquisition Act, The land is to be utilised by the company for developing an SEZ, which would also house its parent firm Reliance Industries' proposed 27 million tonne mega refinery.

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Brip

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Information delayed is right denied

Information delayed is right denied

SCIC  Slaps Rs 23,000 fine on Dy Collector of Jamnagar Stamp Duty Valuation Office for 10-yr late reply
 
State Chief Information Commissioner (SCIC), R N Das, slapped a hefty fine of Rs 23,000 on the Deputy Collector of Jamnagar Stamp Duty Valuation Office on Thursday. This is the highest penalty so far.

The verdict was delivered on the petition of one Pruthaben Badiyani, who had applied under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, seeking to know the progress made on her application for payment of stamp duty on a property she bought in 1996. She had been applying since 1996 to know how much stamp duty she needed to pay. In 2004, the State Government came out with an amnesty scheme, and Badiyani applied again demanding a certified copy of the order that asked her to pay the stamp duty.


This time she was asked to deposit Rs 7,925, which she did on March 10, 2005. Following this, she asked for the return of the registered documents of her property, and despite repeated reminders failed to get them.

Failing to get redressal, Badiyani applied under the RTI Act on October 17, 2005. Reply came on January 18, 2006. Despite receiving the information sought, Badiyani preferred to continue with her appeal on delay and the matter came up for hearing before SCIC. Last hearing was held on November 4.

In his written reply, the deputy collector admitted that owing to his preoccupation with Jamnagar Municipal Corporation elections, his lower staff might have committed some mistakes leading to the delay.

In his verdict, Das found the explanation given by the deputy collector as unreasonable and untenable on the grounds that though the complaint under RTI Act was made only in October 2005, the grievance in fact goes back to 1996, making it a fit case for imposition of penalty.

With the delay being of 92 days from the time of submission of application to actual receiving of information by the complainant, the SCIC slapped a fine of Rs 23,000 at the rate of Rs 250 per day, to be credited by the respondent within 30 days of the order.



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Brip

Thursday, November 2, 2006

Reliance to restart Jamnagar unit by Nov-end

P Raghavendran, head of the firm's refining business, on Wednesday said that the fire-damaged hydrotreater unit at its refinery to be restarted by the end of November,  this unit has been shut since October 25 after a fire at Reliance's  6.6M barrels a day refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat.

Hydrotreaters is used remove sulphur and nitrogen compounds from oil products, and play a crucial role in upgrading refinery feedstock used to produce gasoline and olefins.

Reliance shares were up 0.15 percent at 1,228 rupees in flat Mumbai market. Raghavendran said there would be no product shortages as repairs were carried out.

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Brip

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Indian Air Force base - 42 labourers injured in building collapse

At least 42 labourers were injured after a building inside the Indian Air Force base in Jamnagar district of Gujarat collapsed on Thursday, district officials said here.

Rescue teams have evacuated at least 42 people from the debris, while searches were on for those feared trapped, Jamnagar District Resident Deputy Collector (RDC) Ketan Thakker said. All the injured were labourers, he said.

The condition of three rescued persons is critical, all the injured were admitted to a hospital.

"As of now, focus of the administration is to rescue those still trapped beneath the debris. The cause of building collapse is not yet known," he said.

Fire brigade personnel and medical teams were stationed at the collapse site to assist in the rescue operation, he added.



--
Brip

Jamnagar refinery back on track

Reliance Industries said its Jamnagar refinery, where a fire destroyed one of its oil processing units on Wednesday, is operating at full capacity and the accident will not affect the company's financial performance and supply of products.

"All the units are running at full capacity. Only the fire-hit desulphurisation unit is out of operation," RIL's Jamnagar refinery site president P K Kapil told PTI.

A diesel hydrotreater that was shut following the fire at the adjacent vacuum gasoil hydrotreater was back in operation and all other units were operating at full capacity.

"Jamnagar refinery produces 7,500 tonnes of LPG per day. Today the refinery is producing close to that figure," he said adding it was not correct to say that the country would be deprived of LPG.

Meanwhile, one contract worker, reported missing after the fire, was found dead. Another company employee, who suffered more than 60 per cent burn injuries, has been moved to Mumbai for treatment.

Reliance officials said Jamnagar refinery, which met about one-fifth of country's LPG demand, had enough stocks to meet the requirement for the next one week.

Kapil said there would be no shortage of any petroleum products because of the fire. The fire had affected only a small section of the refinery and the rest of it was working properly.

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, who took stock of the situation at a meeting of chief executives of oil companies, said the country had enough stocks to meet LPG requirement for more than two weeks.

"As a precaution, we have already floated tenders to import LPG," he said.

The fire damaged the vacuum gasoil hydrotreater unit No. 2 and the company as a precaution also shut down the adjacent diesel hydrotreater unit No. 2. Hydrotreaters remove sulphur from petrol and diesel.


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Brip

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Major fire broke out in Jamnagar refinery

Reliance Industries was likely to take a hit of almost Rs 1,200 crore due to a fire in one of the vacuum gas oil hydrotreater units at its Jamnagar refinery early today. 

A major fire broke out in the Jamnagar refinery of Reliance today. Attempts are being made to control the fire. The fire broke out in unit no. 2 of the crude section of ther refinery.  Fire tenders of the Jamnagar city, Air Force and Rajkot city are being rushed to the spot. The cause of the fire and the number of casualties are not known yet. Fire broke out around 10.30 AM.


Reliance Industries' Jamnagar refinery has a capacity of 660,000 barrels per day and with one of the two vacuum gas oil hydrotreaters out of action for 10-15 days, production was expected to come down by half, sources said, this would particularly hit Reliance Industries' export commitments of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and of some polymer products. Diesel and gasoline comprised nearly 40-45 per cent of the company's total refined product exports of $5.5 billion during the first six months of the current financial year ending September 30. A Reuters report from Singapore says that , "Gasoline markets may firm while high-sulphur crude prices (may) slide" if the vacuum gas oil hydrotreater requires lengthy repairs, The vacuum gas oil hydrotreater unit, which is believed to have been completely gutted in the fire, removes sulphur from crude oil and passes it on to a fluid catalytic cracker unit, which in turn produces gasoline and olefins, which feed the petrochemical units at the Jamnagar refinery. 

Due to the fire, the complex may not be able to run its downstream petrochem plants of paraxylene-PTA and polypropylene. 

According to sources in Reliance Industries, imports of low sulphur sweet crude oil are being thought about, but that may not help Reliance Industries reach full capacity immediately, The removal of the damaged plant and construction of a replacement is expected take more time than predicted by the company, Reliance Industries, which posted a net profit of Rs 2,709 crore on an income of Rs 28,496 crore for the quarter ended September 30, exports diesel and gasoline mainly to SAARC countries and to countries in the north African region. 

Government is taking no chances and has asked state-owned Indian Oil Corp to tie up import of about 100,000 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas, The fire was not likely to result in the shortage of other fuels as the shortage might be supplemented by imports, Petroleum Secretary MS Srinivasan told a television channel. 

Though Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani told Petroleum Minister Murli Deora there would be no production loss, according to a PTI report, government sources said the shutdown of the hydrotreater unit would result in a shortfall of 120,000 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas supplies to the domestic market, a small fraction of the overall projected demand of about 12 million tonnes this year. 



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Brip

Monday, October 9, 2006

Jamnagar Village under Quake Threat

Jamnagar Village under Quake Threat,

Residents of Khankhotda village, ( Kalawad taluka)  have been spending sleepless nights since a month. The mild tremors are experienced with huge bangs people fear the repeat of the 2001 quake, they are still not ready to shift to their houses and have been living in tents erected for them by the administration.  The region experienced eleven "blasts" on Sunday and six mild tremors on Monday. this village is the epicentre, the Jamnagar District Collector Office has erected tents where around 100 people have taken shelter. In other villages like Bagha and Lalpur also, people are spending night in the open.

Purshottam Patel sarcpanch of Khankhotda says that, more than 100 people have taken refuge in around 30 tents. ''It's been more than a month that people here have not been able to sleep because of these tremors and blasts,''.

On Sunday, 11 tremors were recorded between 7 am and 1 pm. Another tremor measuring 2.4 on the Richter scale hit the region around 4 pm.

Last Friday, Dwarka in Jamnagar district also recorded an undersea tremor measuring 2.8 on the Richter scale. ''Tremors recorded were very mild. There's no reason to panic," said Jamnagar District Collector VP Patel.

Seismologist SS Gadhvi said: ''Jamnagar district is in zone number 3, which means it has less possibility of being hit by an earthquake. No fault line is active in Saurashtra region. So there could be mild tremors, but no powerful earthquake.''  the team also explained that the tremors are result of movement between two plates, located hardly 2 kms down from the surface. The team, which has set up two temporary observatories in Khankhotda and Lalpur, based on their past two days' experience said that blast will continue for another one and a half months. ''It will subside when movements between two plates will stop,'


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Brip

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