The Hindu : New Delhi News : Oil strike on: 20 officers suspended, 2 arrested

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Thursday, Jan 08, 2009
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Oil strike on: 20 officers suspended, 2 arrested

Sujay Mehdudia

– PHOTO: RAMESH SHARMA

ON STRIKE: The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation corporate office in New Delhi lies deserted on Wednesday following officers’ strike.

NEW DELHI: Defying a stay order by the Delhi High Court, the Oil Sector Officers’ Association (OSOA) went on an indefinite strike from Wednesday morning.

This led to disruption in supply of gas to priority areas, including power plants, impacting work in four main Indian Oil Corporation refineries and forcing shutdown of the Hazira-Vijaipur-Jagdishpur pipeline.

The government came down strongly on the agitating employees and suspended 20 oil sector officers — 11 from the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), and three each from Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and Gas Authority India Limited (GAIL) — and arrested two ONGC officers for participating in the strike.

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram reviewed the situation arising out of the strikes by oil sector executives and truckers at a meeting with the Cabinet Secretary, the Petroleum Secretary and the Transport Secretary. Petroleum Secretary R.S. Pandey said IOC had deployed Territorial Army personnel to man its installations at Mumbai and Delhi airports to ensure that air traffic is not disrupted.

The IOC said the Haldia refinery was completely shut down while its Panipat, Mathura and Koyali refineries were in the “cooling down” phase — a process before the units are completely shut down.

OSOA president Amit Kumar claimed the strike was total in all oil PSUs except Hindustan Petroleum. However, reports suggested that in BPCL the striking employees were divided while it had no impact on Hindustan Petroleum Corporation.

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