OUR CORRESPONDENT
TINSUKIA: At a time when dousing the fire at the Baghjan oil well has kept the OIL authority on their toes, leakage of crude oil from an OIL pipeline at the Betjan Tea Estate's No 2 Jangal Line near Makum in Tinsukia district on Tuesday morning created panic in the tea garden. Though the OIL authority, on receiving the information from the garden management, stopped the flow of crude oil in the Barekuri-Duliajan oil pipeline, the crude oil had already spilled over into several drains inside the garden.
It is suspected that the previous night, oil thieves attempted to pilfer crude oil by placing valve in the exposed part of the pipeline running over a drain and the pipeline leaked which resulted in spilling. Pilferage of oil by organized gangs in several locations is a common practice. The process of decanting the oil from the drains and capping the leakage part of the pipeline was continuing till the filing of this report.