|
Jorhat, Sept. 11: The Assam government has proposed to set up a panel on security matters for Oil India Limited’s (OIL) installations modelled on the security review committee for Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Limited in Dibrugarh district, to tackle disruption of work because of frequent agitations.
Oil India has over 100 installations in three Upper Assam districts — Tinsukia, Dibrugarh and Sivasagar.
Upper Assam commissioner S.I. Hussain mooted the proposal for a security panel at a meeting held under the chairmanship of industry minister Pradyut Bordoloi in Dibrugarh last week with representatives of different branches of tea industry, OIL officials, Assam Gas Company Limited officials and other stakeholders.
He wrote a letter yesterday to the resident chief executive of the oil major at Duliajan to organise a meeting at the earliest between the top civil officials of the districts and CISF.
The state government in August 2010 constituted the security committee with Upper Assam commissioner as its chairman and managing director of BPCL as convener, to tackle the law and order situation arising out of labour unrest leading to suspension of work at the site of the cracker project, which delayed its completion.
Hussain told The Telegraph here today that OIL officials had said that strikes and blockades had halted their operations and affected supply of gas to the tea industry, power generation, fertiliser plant at Namrup and hence a mechanism like the security committee was needed to have better coordination among all the parties concerned.
The commissioner said the meeting was convened following complaints from the tea and power sectors about erratic gas supply that caused not only severe losses but also had the potential of creating law and order problems.
“The industry minister (Pradyut Bordoloi) has taken note of the problem during the meeting on September 7 and directed me to discuss the matter with OIL authorities, so the company can provide uninterrupted supply of gas and oil to consumers,” Hussain said. An OIL official said the oil major’s gas supply commitment (supplied through Assam Gas Company Limited) to the tea industry is 0.6 million cubic metres per day, to three powers units in Upper Assam is 2.5 million cubic metres and 1.72 million cubic metres to the Namrup-based fertiliser plant.
The security review committee, which had its first meeting in August last year, has been meeting once a month and this year on a quarterly basis and addressing problems related to security of the cracker project. The committee had also discussed the action taken reports on steps and measures mooted by it and a meeting could be convened any time in view of any crisis at the project site.
Hussain said that after formation of the committee, the disruptions had gone down at the project site and a clash between workers and CISF personnel early this year averted and normality restored within three days.
| 
