NEW DELHI, Feb 19 (PTI): Public sector oil companies lost about Rs 460 crore because of the three-day strike by their executives last month, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said today.
“A section of officers of the oil PSUs had gone on strike from January 7 to 9,” demanding higher wages, he said in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha here. The executives were demanding risk pay, fitment benefits, increase in quantum of dearness allowance (DA) to be considered for fitment benefits, periodicity of pay revision reduced to five years and annual/stagnation increments.
“The estimated total loss as reported by the oil PSUs is Rs 459.67 crore,” he said. A Committee of Ministers under Home Minister P Chidambaram has already been constituted to look into issues relating to pay revision in the oil sector, he added.
Profit: To a separate question, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dinsha Patel said the Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has seen its net profit climb to Rs 13,919 crore in April-December period of the current fiscal against Rs 16,702 crore in full 2007-08 fiscal because of higher price realisation on crude oil it sold.
Similarly, the Oil India reported a net profit of Rs 1,858.91 crore in the three quarters against Rs 1,788.93 crore in 2007-08.
Separately, Patel said the Indian Oil Corp is expected to start site construction work for its proposed oil refinery at Paradip in Orissa during the first quarter of 2010.
“Total of 3,344 acres of land has been acquired for Paradip refinery project. After reclamation of the entire land and completing pre-project activities, the site construction work is expected to commence during the first quarter of 2010,” he said. The 15-million tonne per year refinery will cost Rs 29,777 crore. The cost of adjacent petrochemical complex will be additional to this.
Patel said due to very high estimated cost of refinery- cum-petrochemical complex at Paradip, the Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) at its meeting held on May 26, 2008 decided that only refinery (without petrochemical complex) would be built in the first phase of the project.
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