The Hindu Business Line : Oil sector officers to go on strike from May 31

Flights from various parts of the country may not be able to take off if the oil sector officers play out their threat of going on an indefinite strike from May 31, which would result in a serious disruption of supplies of aviation fuel.

With negotiations on revising salaries having failed, around 45,000 members of the Oil Sector Officers' Association (OSOA) have announced their intention to go on indefinite strike from the early hours (6 a.m.) of Wednesday. An association member told Business Line that its Friday meeting with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) remained inconclusive.

The association is protesting against the non-implementation of a decision to revise salaries with effect from January 1, 2002.

According to the member, while the Ministry agreed that the salary grievance was genuine, the DPE stuck to its earlier position of not being able to bring about an enhancement in remuneration.

Fuel supply to be hit

Consequent to the inconclusive meeting with the Government, it has held meetings with airports authorities in Mumbai and Delhi regarding aviation fuel being the first public utility services to be hit. The fuel supply will be hit from the early hours (6 a.m.) of May 31. This would cost the Government exchequer around Rs 200 crore per day, the association member added.

Besides this, the association said work at the refining facility and production platform of ONGC would also stop. The impact of the shutdown of the refining facility would be felt only 12 hours hence, he added.

The association has served a strike notice to the Ministry and the respective oil PSU managements.

OSOA is a representative body of all oil sector public sector undertakings, including Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and GAIL (India). ONGC officers are represented in OSOA through the Association of Scientific and Technical Officers, which has 24,000 members.

The association was making a case for an entry-level salary of Rs 50,000 per month (from Rs 20,000 per month at present) for management trainees and commensurate rise in emoluments at senior levels.

As per estimates, the strike could mean a loss of Rs 164.5 crore on oil sales of 5,22,000 barrels a day and Rs 17.28 crore on gas sales of 54 million standard cubic metres a day. Loss of value added products production (naphtha, high speed diesel, kerosene) is expected to be 9,300 tonnes per day.

The association had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry on January 11, 2000 for the upward revision of wages with effect from January 1, 2002. The MoU is yet to be implemented.

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