AASU threatens oil blockade: Recruitment drive puts OIL in a fix

GUWAHATI, January 19: The Oil India Limited's (OIL) decision to appoint as many as 300 unskilled workers at one go has literally opened the Pandora's box putting the public sector giant in a dilemma with several students organisations and political parties pressurising it to take in their 'hand-picked' candidates. Sources in the OIL admitted that pressure from various students' organisations was mounting even as the authorities preparing to announce the results of recruitment drive after screening about 9000 candidates from three Upper Assam districts of Sivasagar, Dibrugarh and Tinsukia. With the election round the corner, some politicial parties have also joined these pressure groups. These political parties are using some of the students' organisations as their front to mount pressure on the OIL. Each of these students' organisations including the powerful All Assam Students Union, All Assam Moran Students Union and Motok Students Union have submitted their list of candidates to the OIL authority for selection. The problem became worse for the OIL authority by the fact that there is no standing guidelines and minimum educational qualification for recruiting unskilled workers. The appointment of the 300 hundred unskilled workers is a part of the OIL's social commitment package of 1997-98. The Ministry of Petroleum's blanket ban on appointments last year had almost closed the chapter of largest ever unskilled workers appointment in oil sector in the region. However, it was resurrected due to sustained efforts of the OIL as well as various students' organisations including the AASU. The AASU has been very candid in maintaining that since the students body was instrumental in waiving Ministry ban on appointment of unskilled workers, it wanted the OIL authority to consider the list of candidates it had submitted while filling up the posts. Similar, demand is being raised by other students organisations. All these students' bodies threatened to go for oil blockade if the OIL failed to consider their demand putting the oil giant in a difficult situation. The OIL which extracts 11,000 kilo litre crude per day, oil blockade for a day means loss of about Rs 40 crore a day which includes cost of primary, secondary and auxilliary products. Given the present crisis, the OIL authority today must be regretting its failure to recruit unskilled workers since 1991. Because of lack of recruitment for such a long time, the OIL now has to recruit 300 workers at one go.