GUWAHATI, Feb 1: LPG cylinder transporters of Indian Oil Corporation on Thursday called off their indefinite strike after the government threatened to enforce the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) on them, officials said.
The North East Packed LPG Transporter Association (NEPLTA) on Wednesday resorted to an indefinite strike, which was termed illegal by the Indian Oil Corporation, for the second time in less than two months, alleging pending dues and low rates in recently floated tenders.
“We have ended the strike after our discussions with the district administrations last night. We will decide about our future course of action in the coming few days,” NEPLTA chief adviser Kumud Nath told PTI.
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He, however, declined to share further details of the meeting and whether any resolution was taken regarding their demands.
When contacted, a senior official of IndianOil said that the loading of cylinders had begun from 6 am on Thursday at all of its plants across Assam.
“District Commissioners of Kamrup, Tinsukia and Bongaigaon held separate meetings with the transporters of the plants in their districts. They told the agitators that ESMA was already promulgated and if the strike was not withdrawn, it would be enforced,” he added.
The official further stated that the entire matter is sub-judice before the Gauhati High Court and no strike can be called until the case is settled.
Earlier, the decision to go for a strike was taken after a meeting called by the Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs Department of the Assam government on Tuesday between Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and NEPLTA failed to bring out any solution to the prolonged stalemate.
The association had also written to the chief secretary of Assam on January 5, flagging the same issues and urged him to take urgent necessary steps to address their grievances.
NEPLTA operates around 2,500 trucks to transport LPG cylinders from IOC’s bottling plants to various distributors across the Northeast.
Because of the agitation, supplies to Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya were impacted, the senior official had 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.
Out of these, the strike had affected five plants located in Assam, having a combined output of 90,000 cylinders per day.
Earlier on December 4, the NEPLTA had suddenly stopped plying their trucks over the same issues of pending dues and low rates in tenders, thereby affecting the supply of LPG to various sectors in several Northeastern states.
After a series of meetings between the IOC and agitators, mediated by the state government, the LPG cylinder transporters on December 9 had withheld their agitation for one month after the company agreed to several of the demands raised by the association.
The NEPLTA had gone into 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)
