Oil sector officers demand reinstatement

Oil sector officers, who brought the country to a grinding halt, by going on strike for nearly three days, will appeal to their respective management to reinstate the employees sacked by the companies.

This includes 64 officials who were sacked by the country's largest oil explorer, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and around three employees each by Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and GAIL.

"We have decided to appeal to our board to reinstate the sacked officials. We will be submitting a formal written appeal to the management on Monday," said an ONGC official who was also on strike demanding higher wages. 

When asked about reinstatement of the sacked officials, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said: "The decision in this case is up to the management. The ministry has nothing to do with it."

IOC officials have also drafted an appeal to submit to their management. The appeal read: "…Your action will de-motivate our families. We appeal to the management to be magnanimous and revoke the orders given against the striking officers."

IOC runs about half of the 37,000 fuel retail pumps in the country as well as some of the key refineries like Mathura and Panipat. It has estimated the loss from the strike at about Rs 30 crore (Rs 300 million) per day.

Around 50,000 executives from 13 government-owned oil companies - under the umbrella of the Oil Sector Officer's Association (OSOA) - began an indefinite strike on Wednesday demanding higher wages.

Two-thirds of the petrol pumps across the country ran dry as refineries were shut down. Gas-based power generation was hit, fertilizer production was down and flights were delayed as the oil executives stayed away from work despite invocation of the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) by many states.

A tough-talking government on Friday managed to break the oil officers strike.