The government is looking forward to setting up three new Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Regions (PCPIRs) in the country.

The proposed projects will come up in the coastal areas of Karnataka, Maharashtra, and West Bengal. A PCPIR is usually a delineated area of around 250 sq km for setting up manufacturing facilities for domestic and export-led production.

Presently, the country has four such regions -- Dahej in Gujarat; Paradip in Odisha; Vishakhapatnam-Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh; and Cuddalore-Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu. PCPIRs in Gujarat and Odisha are in the final stages.

As per the PCPIR policy, the Centre has to ensure availability of external physical infrastructure linkages to these regions including rail, road connectivity to national highways, ports, airports and telecom connectivity also.

The internal infrastructure of the PCPIR is built and managed by a developer. The external linkages will be provided by the central and the state governments. The users of external as well as internal infrastructure will pay for its use.