Reliance staff, villagers clash

Clashes took place over a water dispute.

Some 5,000 workers from the Jamnagar refinery of Reliance Industries Ltd clashed with the residents of the Khavdi village late last evening.

The clashes, which took place over a water dispute, continued today and spilled over to the nearby Essar Oil refinery site by the afternoon.

Though no casualties have been reported so far, the state administration has beefed up security in the area.

Trouble has been brewing for quite some time between the locals at the Khavdi village, where RIL has its refinery, and migrant labourers.

Some 10,000 migrants""largely from Orissa, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and some southern states ""are currently working in the village area on RIL and Essar projects.

The locals are upset over the increased population of migrant workers in the area and have decided to force them to shift to worker camps.

Hemantsinh Jadeja, the sarpanch of the village, told Business Standard, "We have forced the workers living in the village and the surrounding region to evacuate and shift to worker colonies made by RIL and Essar."

Asked about the incident and its implications, he said, "We are worried about our own safety and may not be comfortable with more migrant labour from other states."

To ensure that the its workers evacuate from the villages and the surrounding area to worker camps without more trouble, RIL declared a day's leave for its 2,000-odd contract workers.

Following the clashes, it is being feared that RIL and Essar Oil may face hurdles in sourcing workers for their ongoing and upcoming projects near Jamnagar.

RIL executives confirmed that 2,000 labourers were working at the project site -"" the company is doubling its refining capacity to 60 million tonnes.

The number of workers employed for the expansion is expected to go up to 30,000 when work starts in full swing. Essar Oil has 7,000 contract workers for its 16-million-tonne Jamnagar refinery project.

An RIL spokesperson described the unrest as a minor incident saying that it would not have any impact on the company's expansion project.