Led by chief secretary Manish Gupta, the state government's task force on developing the infrastructure for the downstream industries at Haldia took this decision after a meeting on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters at a meeting organised by the Merchants Chamber of Commerce on `Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd and Downstream Opportunities', West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) managing director, DP Patra said, ``The task force also decided to expedite the polypark projects at Haldia and Durgapur. It also decided to set up a team comprising WBIDC and HPL officials to promote the downstream projects.'' Haldia Petro chairman, Tapan Mitra, was also present at the meeting.

Patra said, ``We are expecting investments worth Rs 2,000 crore in the downstream sector in the nextthree years. Talks are on with Bayer for a butadiene project costing Rs 200 crore and a phenol project by Hindusthan Organics costing a similar amount. A Mitsui team is also supposed to visit soon to consider a phenol project.''

Tapan Mitra said, ``The mechanical completion of the project has been delayed by a month and it will take till August-September this year. The orginal schedule was a very tight one.''

Haldia Petro vice-president, marketing, Shankar Banerjee told reporters that ``after the mechanical completion the plants will be tested with hot nitrogen blasts. The first furnace of the naphtha cracker will be fired by October 1999.''

Mitra said, ``HPL will have to fight every inch of the way to get market share in the Indian market. We will learn from our competitors who are in the market for a long time. We will learn from their mistakes as well as their strengths.''