Employees protest OIL's disinvestment plan

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, July 17: Oil & Gas Employees Union is up against the government’s plan to sell 10 per cent stake in Oil India Limited.

The union’s general secretary Durlov Kumar Dutta said a delegation of the union met the Petroleum minister on July 13 and voiced its protest against the disinvestment proposal.

“We have submitted a memorandum and it has been made clear that if the decision is not reconsidered, we will be left with no other option but to resort to democratic agitation for which the government will be solely responsible,” he said.

The disinvestment department plans to sell 15 per cent stake in Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL), 10 per cent each in Oil India (OIL) and Engineers India Limited (EIL) and 5 per cent each in NTPC and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL).

The government holds 67.64 per cent stake in country’s second largest explorer OIL.

The stake sale in OIL could fetch Rs 2,723 crore.

The employees union also said that they have taken up with the government the cancellation of Mrs Rupsikha Borah’s appointment as the CMD of the PSU. “We have brought the matter to the notice of MP Rameshwar Teli who has immediately written a letter to the Prime Minister. We have also approached Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Sarbanda Sonowal. The Petroleum minister told us that he had recommended Mrs Borah’s me, but the PMO has not cleared the me. We have filed an RTI with the PMO seeking information on the grounds for which the selection of Mrs Borah has been rejected,” Dutta said.