A prominent NGO in Assam, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti has registered its strong opposition to the Centre’s move to start e-tendering process to “sell off” four oilfields in Assam to multinational companies.
The KMSS leader Akhil Gogoi talking to the media here on Monday claimed that the e-tendering process for “sell off” has started initially for two oilfields – Tengakhat and Jurajan – with “three multinational firms, M/s Schlumberger Asia Services Ltd, M/s Halliburton Offshore Services Corporation and M/s Baker Hughes Singapore Pte Ltd as the vendors meeting the pre-qualification criteria”.
He said the KMSS members would stage an agitation against the move to privatization state oil fields, in front of Oil India Limited’s headquarters in Duliajan on December 28.
“Thereafter, we will join the trade unions of OIL in the total ceasework launched on January 2, 2019. We will lay siege to the OIL office at Moran on January 5,” Gogoi said.
Informing that the minimum bid for the auction has been kept at Rs 5 crore (US $ 7million) to be submitted on or before January 18, 2019, the KMSS leader said, “Coincidentally, it was on January 18, 1980, when four persons lost their lives while trying to oppose such sale of the state’s oil resources to companies,” he said.
“In the subsequent phase, two more oilfields, Baghjan and Barekuri will be up for bidding. The Centre wants to enhance oil production and has, therefore, resorted to sell them to MNCs, which we oppose,” Gogoi said.