IOC’s northeast LPG cylinder carriers go on indefinite strike

Guwahati, Jan 31 (PTI) LPG cylinder transporters of Indian Oil Corporation on Wednesday went on an indefinite strike for the second time in less than two months, alleging pending dues and low rates in recently floated tenders.

An IOC official, however, termed the strike as illegal.

The decision to go for the shutdown was taken after a meeting called by the Food, Public Distribution & Consumer Affairs Department of Assam between IOC and the North East Packed LPG Transporter Association (NEPLTA) failed to yield any solution to the prolonged stalemate.

"The government called us yesterday to talk about our demands. We reiterated our old issues, mostly related to pending dues and low rates in the tenders. However, the IOC was reluctant to talk about those," NEPLTA chief adviser Kumud Nath told PTI.

The association had also written to the chief secretary on January 5, raising the same issues and urged him to take necessary steps, he said.

"The government had called yesterday's meeting, accordingly, to find out a solution. But, the IOC officials were adamant not to look into our problems and the discussions did not bring out any positive outcome,” Nath alleged.

From Wednesday morning, hundreds of trucks were seen lining up outside the bottling plants across Assam, but the vehicles did not enter the factories and load the cylinders, meant for distribution among the dealers.

When contacted, a senior IOC official said: "They have not given us any strike notice. So, it is an illegal action as per the law. Their claims on arrears and low rates are also misleading.” The company has already released Rs 2.75 crore of pending dues to different transporters of various plants, and there is no unsettled amount, he claimed.

"They have not submitted any more signed bill. It is totally misleading that we are not releasing money to them," the official claimed.

On the low rate issue, he asserted that the company is moving ahead as per its tripartite discussions with the state government and the NEPLTA.

"Moreover, the matter is sub-judice before the Gauhati High Court. It has not issued any stay order and asked the IOC to proceed as per norms," the official said.

NEPLTA operates around 2,500 trucks to transport LPG cylinders from IOC's bottling plants to various distributors across the Northeast region.

Due to the agitation, supplies to Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya are likely to be impacted, the senior official said on condition of anonymity.

IndianOil-AOD, IOC's Northeast division, produces 1.4 lakh LPG cylinders every day from its nine operational bottling plants across the region.

Of these, the strike has affected five plants located in Assam, having a combined output of 90,000 cylinders per day.

Earlier on December 4 last year, the NEPLTA had suddenly stopped plying their trucks over the same issues of pending dues and low rates in tenders, and the supply of LPG cylinders was affected in several northeastern states.

After a series of meetings between the IOC and agitators, facilitated by the state government, the LPG cylinder transporters had on December 9 withheld their agitation for one month.

According to Nath, the IOC in this period was supposed to work on the grievances to settle the issues, but "nothing concrete in this regard happened".

In its letter to the chief secretary earlier this month, NEPLTA alleged that the rates in the recently floated tenders for various plants of Assam and Northeast have been "reduced significantly", in contrast to the decision taken during the previous tripartite talks.

The NEPLTA also highlighted the "substantial arrear payment" of various transporters and requested the chief secretary to direct IOC to do the needful in this regard.

The transporters' body had gone on strikes in 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 also over the same issue of renewal of contracts when the company had floated the tenders.

The process was taken to the Court by the NEPLTA in 2018.

The company had later withdrawn the renewal of the contracts and extended the existing ones. PTI