Organizations threaten oil blockade from August 31 in Tinsukia district

OUR CORRESPONDENT

TINSUKIA: The students and other social organizations are heading for confrontation with Tinsukia district administration over OIL-CSR issue after the latter refused to accept the demands of the organizations pertaining to allocation of CSR grants to local bodies as against the new mandates of CSR Rules which contemplated them to resort to oil blockade from August 31. The tripartite negotiations between OIL, administration and 8 local organizations, including TRSU (AASU) held on Thursday at Tinsukia DC's conference hall ended in a stalemate while the organizations announced to go-ahead with oil blockade programme as scheduled.

The 8 organizations – Makum Regional Students' Union along with Makum regional committees of AJYCP, All Moran Students' Union, Assam Tea Tribes Students' Association, Asom Moran Sabha, Tai Asom Yuba Parishad, Khilongiya Surakhya Bahini and Brihattar Asomiya Yuba Manch – had collectively earlier announced oil blockade programme against Oil India Limited (OIL) from August 31 as both OIL and Tinsukia district administration did not pay any heed to their charter of demands including allotment of OIL's CSR grants which they had submitted on July 27 and July 28.

Following announcement of blockade programme, the Tinsukia administration organized a tripartite meeting on August 26 involving OIL and representatives of 8 organizations at DC's conference hall. The meeting fell through as the organizations demanded that the CSR should be implemented through construction committee as practised before and opposed the latest CSR implementation guidelines under Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Amendment Rules 2021 which was notified on January 22, 2021 by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India. A highly placed official source informed that the organizations were told in the meeting either to register themselves as per new CSR mandate or to accept DC's office as Government entity which was not acceptable to them. The Companies (CSRP) Amendment Rules 2021 stipulated under Rule 4 under sub-rule (1) [a-d] states that the CSR Board shall ensure that the CSR activities are undertaken by the company itself through a registered trust or a registered society established by the Central or State Government, and alternatively the entity should be registered under Section 12A and 80G of the Income Tax Act 1961.

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