GUWAHATI: Various organisations of Assam, have expressed concern over the Centre’s reported move to dis-invest Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), which is the major shareholder in Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) with 61.65 per cent stake.
Forum Against Citizenship Act Amendment Bill (FACAAB), a group comprising senior intellectuals and leading citizens, has termed the Centre’s reported move to privatise Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) a “conspiracy” and demanded that such a plan should be aborted immediately.
“NRL is the outcome of the six-year-long Assam Agitation with sentiments of the Assamese people attached to the refinery. Even if the Centre has not announced plans to privatise NRL, it has already initiated the process to privatise BPCL, which has a 61.65 per cent stake in the Golaghat-based refinery,” FACAAB chairman, Hiren Gohain told reporters here on Monday.
The central government has 52 per cent share in BCPL. “Therefore, its privatisation will automatically lead to a similar fate for NRL,” Gohain said.
The forum urged the All Assam Students’ Union, a signatory of the Assam Accord inked in 1985, along with other organisations to launch a state-wide agitation against such a “conspiracy” to privatise NRL.
AASU chief advisor Samujjal Bhattacharjya, in a tweet on Sunday, also voiced concern over reports of disinvestment of BPCL and called for protecting the interests of NRL, which is an outcome of the Assam Agitation and Assam Accord.
FACAAB further said that NRL has never incurred any loss since it was commissioned in the year 2000. On the contrary, it said, the refinery has earned profits to the tune of over Rs 2000 crore in the past three years itself and has contributed every year to the state exchequer.
Of late, the refinery has also announced several expansion plans and taken up three new projects in this regard, which would have augmented its annual profits.
There are over 1000 permanent and 2000 temporary employees apart from several hundred others indirectly involved with NRL.
“Currently, about 90 per cent of permanent/temporary employees apart from about 80 to 85 per cent officials and engineers are locals. Therefore, the jobs of these people are at stake while opportunities for several other job aspirants will diminish,” he said.
‘CAB anti-Constitutional’
The forum meanwhile reiterated its stand against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), saying that if it could be rendered unconstitutional if it is enacted into a law because it would then violate Article 14 of the Indian Constitution.
Article 14 of the Constitution says that “the state shall not deny any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.”
“Under no circumstances shall we allow violation of the Constitution. The government will have to take responsibility for any outcome if it imposes a contentious legislation on the people of Assam,” Gohain said.
The forum further appealed to all organizations in the state to again launch an agitation against CAB as the BJP-led state government and its allies have been silent at a time when the some of the other state governments of the Northeast have openly voiced its protest against the legislation.