Demonstration Against ONGC’s Privatization Move

Joysagar: The Sivasagar District Ganatrantik Gana Mancha and the Sivasagar CPI, Left Front Joint Forum and other local ethnic bodies staged a sit-in in front of the ONGC Nazira head office main gate on Friday against the alleged proposal for privatization of many ONGC oil fields by some foreign oil companies within a short period.

The organization leaders alleged that the Sivasagar and Charaideo district ONGC authorities had secretly done the official work to formally hand over many oil exploration and production fields in the two districts recently to foreign oil companies. They said that if this happened and profit-making oil fields were handed over to foreign companies then ONGC would be at the losing end and hundreds of local educated unemployed youths would lose their jobs as the foreign companies had sophisticated machines and skilled workers.

The protesters alleged that there was a section of officials in ONGC who submitted false report to the ONGC top management that some oil fields of Upper Assam were not making enough profit and hence could be handed over to the private sector. But these oil fields and rigs and production wells were functioning smoothly.

The Amguri oil field of Sivasagar district under ONGC was handed over to a private company of Canada and that company after 13 years was still making huge profit after taking charge of the Amguri oil field. The ONGC faced a huge loss by handing over its Amguri oil field to a private company. This time again the same move was being planned, alleged the protesters.

The joint forum of the organizations submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister, the Union Petroleum Minister and also the ONGC top management in the Dehradun head office.

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