The Hindu Business Line : PSU oil officers call off strike

New Delhi, Jan. 9 As the sun set on Friday, it ensured that the tension written large on the faces of oil PSU chiefs, senior Petroleum Ministry officials and public at large was over, with the oil officers calling off their indefinite strike.

The Oil Sector Officers’ Association (OSOA) had gone on strike from January 7, protesting against the recent pay revision announced by the Government.

Speaking to media persons, the Petroleum Minister, Mr Murli Deora, said, “normalcy in supply of petroleum products is being restored speedily.”

While maintaining that there was no arm-twisting on the part of the Government, the Petroleum Secretary, Mr R.S. Pandey, said “we have been very fair to them. We told them you cannot continue to work here without working. Beside, a high-level committee had already been constituted to look into their demands.”

Senior Ministry officials stated that though there were no assurances given, the issues can be settled by and by.

“There is a process to settle matters,” they said.

The oil association, on its part, said that it had withdrawn the strike on humanitarian grounds.

“Taking into account the appeals made by the Home Minister and the Petroleum Minister, as well as the difficulties faced by the public at large, we have withdrawn the strike. We are looking for a solution to our demands at the earliest,” they said.

The recent pay package announced by the Government has not met the expectations of the oil officers. The Government has finalised and notified a pay package for all the PSUs, including oil sector PSUs, after considering the Rao Committee Report.

The Crisis Management Group met early Friday morning to discuss deploying the Army at supply installations so that petrol and diesel tankers are loaded and despatched to petrol pumps, which were running dry across the country for lack of refills.

The inclinations of the strike breaking first came in with news filtering that most of the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd have joined work, followed by news from Oil India Ltd, then by Indian Oil Corporation and GAIL (India) Ltd, as well as ONGC.

The officers of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) did not join the strike.

The strike had taken its toll with the supply of products, namely petrol, diesel, LPG, kerosene, and ATF getting affected to some extent in different parts of the country, but the Petroleum Ministry maintained that “there was no need for panic buying by customers. The country has adequate stocks of these products.”

The Government took all necessary measures for normal supplies to be made so that the retail outlets can dispense petrol and diesel. Similarly, LPG distributors were also given enough supplies to meet the demand. The supply of aviation turbine fuel was maintained at normal levels at all locations. The supply of CNG to transport vehicles in Mumbai was affected of disruptions in gas supply. The supply of gas has been resumed.

While the refineries in Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Mangalore were working to 120 per cent capacity, hit by the strike were Indian Oil Corporation’s Panipat, Mathura and refinery in Gujarat. A senior IOC official said that “different units of the refinery will take different time to start operations. However, the main crude distillation unit can be operationalised in 12 hours.”

Impact was felt among the commuters more on early hours of Friday, it being a working day. Scenes of irate customers were seen in Delhi as well as Mumbai. Police personnel were deployed at some outlets in the suburbs when the situation went out of control. As the queues grew, the attendants panicked because of the possibilities of a stampede.

Taxis in Mumbai virtually stopped operations because there was not enough CNG (compressed natural gas) available in the outlets. However, with gas production from ONGC’s Hazira which affected due to the strike now in order, the supplies are likely taken care off. Autorickshaws, which were also scarce, had a field day charging nearly three times as much. The city has 52,000 taxis, 1.50 lakh autorickshaws and 1,500 Meru private airconditioned cabs.

The city’s lifeline, BEST, also rose to the occasion. General manager, Mr Uttam Khobragade told Business Line that the entire fleet of 3,948 buses were pressed into operations. Anticipating the strike, BEST had created a buffer stock of 690 kilolitres across various depots which could last for the next three days at least.

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