Transporters’ union holds Bathinda refinery to ransom

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 26

Production at the Rs 21,500-crore Guru Gobind Singh refinery in Bathinda district is suffering due to a tussle between transporters hired by refinery vendors and the local transport union. The stand-off has also delayed the maintenance of the refinery which was due in early April.

Sources said the situation was becoming bitter as the transport union was not letting any empty open body trucks enter the refinery premises. They were rather compelling vendors to hire trucks from them at exorbitant charges, the sources said.

A source said, “We have two types of products. The liquid products, such as petrol, diesel and LPG, are ferried by tankers of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. However, the transportation of solid products, like polypropylene, sulphur and coke, is being affected due to the tussle. As the deadlock had hit the transportation of solid products, we had to reduce the production due to the shortage of space.”

Citing high charges of the local transport union, an official said, “The charges for a truck carrying solid products from our refinery to Jalandhar are around Rs 20,000 while the unions are forcing the buyers or vendors to hire trucks from their union members which charge around Rs 53,000.”

“In such a scenario, we are afraid that our buyers might shift to the Panipat refinery as the higher charges make the input cost unviable to vendors,” the official added. He added that repercussions had also led to delay in the refinery’s maintenance which was due on April 1.

The refinery is facing such problems since March 2016 and despite repeated representations to the government nothing has been done so far.

Refinery officials had complained to the district administration regarding the union allegedly threatening transporters and not allowing them to enter the refinery premises but nothing had been done till now.

Meanwhile, to highlight their plight, refinery officials met Chief Principal Secretary Suresh Kumar yesterday who reportedly assured to extend them all possible cooperation.

The Guru Gobind Singh refinery is owned by HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd, a joint venture between Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd and Mittal Energy Investments Pvt Ltd, Singapore.