The government on Friday cracked down on the striking oil PSU executives, ordering arrests and calling the army to restore normal fuel supply on the third day of the nationwide stir.
The government on Friday cracked down on the striking oil PSU executives, ordering arrests and calling the army to restore normal fuel supply that was thrown into disarray on the third day of the nationwide stir.
Government cracked the whip after Oil minister Murli Deora briefed prime minister Manmohan Singh on the failure of talks with Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA) last night, goading Bharat Petroleum, Oil India and Engineers India executives to return to work to avoid dismissal and arrests.
OSOA struck work on January 7 to press for higher wages, holding the country to ransom by stopping oil and gas output and disrupting fuel supplies that brought road traffic to a halt and delayed domestic and international flights.
About 12,000 petrol pumps of the largest fuel retailer, Indian Oil, and over 3,000 of BPCL was out of stock, leading to mile-long queues at HPCL outlets. Mumbai ran out of compressed natural gas (CNG) that runs some two lakh buses, taxis and autos but Delhi had enough CNG and piped natural gas stocks to last 7 to 10 days.
However, with gas available from ONGC, as many as 138 CNG stations would be fully functional by tonight, Petroleum secretary RS Pandey said.
Petrol, diesel supply situation will improve with BPCL xecutives calling off the strike and army taking despatch and loading operations of IOC at Delhi.
"Tough is an understatement," Deora said, even as Pandey said that army has been called in and arrest orders are being issued against those who are not relenting.
Officers of ONGC and IOC continued to boycott work. IOC chairman Sarthak Behuria said list of officers has been sent to district authorities with instruction for arrest
if officers do not join duty by tomorrow.
"All resources of government including army will be harnessed to deal with a very difficult situation created by oil officers, who are rather well paid," Pandey said while
summarising the events of the last three days including the failure of talks with OSOA late on Thursday night.
The Crisis Management Group met early on Friday morning and decided on deploying army at supply installations so that petrol and diesel tankers are moved to filling stations.
Deora also briefed the Cabinet on the emerging crisis.
"Cabinet showed total solidarity with the ministry and oil companies. We have been given a mandate to use all resources available with the government to restore supplies,"
said Deora.
Home minister P Chidambaram, who has been asked by the prime minister to head a committee to resolve the grievances of the oil PSU officers, said that the Centre has advised state governments to take firm action.
"Firm action is being taken and will be taken," he added.
The Crisis Management Group headed by Cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar took certain decisions to deal with the situation, he said.
"Those decisions have been communicated to the state governments as well as to other authorities and those decisions will be implemented," Chidambaram said.
State-owned drilling firm ONGC has reported a more than 50 per cent decline in oil production at its fields off the Mumbai Coast due to the officers' strike. Secretary Pandey had said yesterday that the ministry was not going to invite the officers for talks again and it has done enough of appealing.
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