Assam: AASU lifts blockade initiative against OIL after written assurance

Dibrugarh: The All Assam Students Union (AASU) and several groups and organisations have protested against the alleged conspiracy hatched by the authorities of Oil India Limited (OIL) to shift four important departments — accounts, human resource employment, human resource development, contract and procurement departments — from the headquarters of Duliajan primarily to Guwahati and later to Noida.

While responding to a memorandum to an organisation, the Chief General Manager (Field Admin) on behalf of the RCE, OIL said, “As confirmed by the top management of OIL, this is to inform you that information regarding shifting of few departments to Guwahati and Noida is ill-informed and is being denied herewith.”

AASU has temporarily suspended their agitation programme after getting a written assurance from the RCE that no department is going to be shifted from Duliajan.

However, AASU demanded the Chairman & Managing Director of OIL to come and make the above announcement in Duliajan.

After written assurance from OIL, AASU lifted the blockade programme.

The blockade programme was organised from Monday, which started at 2 pm and on Tuesday after the assurance from OIL the blockade programme was lifted at around 3 pm.

“The OIL has decided to shift some of its department viz. Finance, HR and another important department from Duliajan but we have opposed this move. On Monday, in protest against the OIL decision, we organised a blockade programme but on Tuesday OIL India authority gave a written assurance to us and after that, the blockade was lifted,” said Aboni Kumar Gogoi, president of AASU Dibrugarh.

He asked, “How can we allow the main departments of OIL to shift to another state? The natural gas and OIL is procured from our land then how could they decide to move the departments?”