Assam Oil on verge of losing unique identity
Guwahati 24-Mar-2011
After its merger with IndianOil (IOC), Assam Oil Company had lost its earlier status and today it is on the verge of losing its unique identity which can be traced back to the late nineteenth century when oil was discovered on the banks of the Dehing river in 1867.
Sources in the oil industry revealed that Assam Oil was gradually being marginalized since its merger with IOC as Assam Oil Division (AOD) in 1981, and things have reached such a stage where it is vested with little functioning power or activities.
"Since 2008, Assam Oil's marketing network has been transferred to the Marketing Division of IOC functioning as the North East Integrated State Office (NEISO). For all practical purposes, AOD is considered comprising only a small insignificant Digboi Refinery," sources said.
Sources added that AOD which was earlier was empowered to recruit both officers and staff, has been restricted to staff-level recruiting only since 1996-drastically reducing employment at officers level from local institutions.
"IndianOil is now adopting a policy of transferring staff-level employees from other parts of the country to Assam promoting them as officers, eroding further the prospects of local employment," sources said, adding that there had been instances of inefficient officers transferred to Assam as punishment posting.
Though the NEISO is in Guwahati, it is operated de facto from Kolkata, with its HR and Finance controlled from Kolkata and "there is increasing tendency to control IOC's all marketing functions from Kolkata instead of from Digboi and Guwahati. Assam Oil's liaison offices in Delhi and Kolkata are already discontinued," sources said, adding that even though the logo of 'Assam Oil' is being maintained in petrol pumps and official letter-heads, it is an eyewash without any real benefit to the region.
Assam Oil as a separate division initially had powers at par with the other four divisions of IOC, i.e., Refineries Division, Marketing Division, Pipelines Division, and Research and Development Division but the divisional powers were systematically removed in the last two decades.
"AOD is the only division in IOC which has no independent director. The director of Refineries Division also acts the 'director in-charge' of AOD.
Since commissioning of Digboi Refinery in 1901, Assam Oil Company was maintained till 1981 as a vertically integrated operations entity encompassing petroleum explorations and production, refining, and marketing. Interestingly, vertical integration from exploration to refining and marketing is considered today as the most compatible strategy in the petroleum sector.
"Unfortunately, after nationalization, AOD's operations were divided into separate parts making the company an unsustainable and sick organization," sources said and added that though IOC modernized the refinery, this was only to improve safety and environmental considerations and not for the growth of the petroleum industry in the region.
"In fact, AOD is today considered as a separate division within IndianOil only in name without any status equivalent to other divisions," sources said.
Attributing the marginalization of AOD to a "covert conspiracy by an anti-Assam lobby", sources said that a bid to transfer the power base to Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai instead of Guwahati and Digboi is too apparent, reflecting a 'colonial' attitude.
The developments are also ironical in the context of the Government of India's Look East Policy, because Digboi is located near the historic Stilwell Road, which would have unprecedented importance once it is opened connecting Assam with South-East Asia.
Digboi Refinery-Asia's oldest refinery-has its unique place in the history of the country's petroleum industry, ushering an era of industrialization in upper Assam. From exploration to refining and then marketing of petroleum products, Assam Oil Company contributed immensely to early industrialization in the remotest corner of the country. The logo 'Assam Oil' with a red rhino also became in the process a symbol of Assam's progress. Though to some extent the company brought skilled manpower from outside, all its operations were largely run by the local people.
