Resistance To Reforms
Around 30,000 workers of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) today went on a three-day strike across the country to protest against the privatisation of the two oil companies. However, supply of petroleum products remained unaffected .
Though the government maintained that work at refineries went on as usual, representatives of the agitating workers claimed otherwise.
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"Refineries are functioning as normal and consumer supplies are continuing normally," Petroleum Secretary B K Chaturvedi said. However, striking unions said production at BPCL refineries went down to 50 per cent and that at HPCL to 30 per cent.
Petrol, diesel, aviation turbine fuel (ATF) and LPG supplies throughout the country continued to be normal despite the strike called by the Oil Sector Officers' Association (OSOA).
OSOA president Ashok Singh said officers were not participating in the strike as both the Mumbai and Delhi high courts had ruled against the agitation.
Petroleum Minister Ram Naik said employees of BPCL and HPCL should abide by the high court rulings. "Oil sector unions are responsible unions and they will ensure that consumers are not impacted in any way," he said. Naik said the government has made arrangements to ensure that supplies are not disrupted.
Chaturvedi said three units of the Territorial Army have been requisitioned to ensure normal functioning of refineries, pipelines and LPG bottling plants. Besides, the unions have themselves exempted essential services from the strike. Moreover, the two companies had on Monday topped up tanks at all customer points, depots and terminals to ensure that supplies would last for at least 48 hours.
However, Swadesh Dev Roye, secretary, Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), said the workers