GUWAHATI: Police on Thursday arrested several picketers belonging to 13 organisations in front of the ONGC’s Assam Assets headquarter in Nazira and in front of the Central workshop of the oil giant in Sivasagar town when they tried to disrupt work of the Corporation to press for their demands.
Sources in the ONGC regional headquarter in Nazira informed that the police action thwarted attempt to disrupt ONGC’s operation by the agitating organizations and the all the wings of the corporation could function without any hitch.
The organizations had called for a 48-hour ONGC Assam Assets bandh to protest ‘ONGC’s anti-people policies in Assam’.
The Executive Director of the ONGC’s Assam Assets on Wednesday made a clarion call to all the agitating organisations to call of the agitation in the greater interest of the operations of the ONGC as well the image of the state which is yearning for investments.
The ONGC official explained: “ONGC drills around 30 wells in a year to produce oil and gas. For carrying out the drilling activity, ONGC needs to construct drill sites costing Rs 1.50 to 2.00 crore per site to support the drilling rig operations. In line with ONGC’s endeavour to transparently allow the local population / vendors to participate in ONGC business activities, ONGC has recently invited a tender for concluding a three-year Annual Rate Contract (ARC) for civil construction of its drill sites instead of inviting a tender for each well site wherein only a few contractors dominate the tender process. Through this ARC which will be concluded through one tender only, ONGC will empanel 300-400 big as well as small civil contractors for award of work for a period of three years. Every site will be developed by 4 contractors – small as well as big. Through this ARC, even the small contractors shall be able to work directly with ONGC instead of working through big contractors. The value of the new contract will be around Rs 150 crore for contracts of various financial values ranging from 10 lakh to 1 crore.
“In next three years approximately around 350-400 civil jobs will be implemented through ARC. The work will be awarded to empanelled contractors on rotation basis. Moreover, ONGC’s partner contractors will be able to plan their resources in time to deliver quality drill sites, save time, speed up the works and earn money,” the statement added.