PM assured NRL subsidy package to tide over current crisis

Guwahati, Jun 10(UNI) Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has assured that a subsidy package will be announced for the Numaligarh refinery Limited (NRL) of Assam to tide over the current crisis over pricing.

This was today informed by AASU adviser Dr Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharya while addressing mediamen here. He led an AASU delegation yesterday to the Prime Minister at New Delhi.

The NRL is not protected by any subsidies like other oil marketing companies and it has unilaterally decided to increase petrol and diesel prices as high crude price as well as non receipt compensation has threatened its entire viability besides wiping off its profit.

The Prime Minister informed that a mechanism was being evolved to help the refinery which had decided to go into retail directly.

Unlike the other PSUs like IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, the government was not providing any compensation package to the NRL as they had decided to forego their right to claim subsidy by going to retail market directly.

'' Last year our profit was Rs 569 crore and because of this high crude price and non compensation, it has gone down this year to Rs 370 crores. At this rate we will wipe off all our profits'' said NRL spokeswoman Ms Madhuchanda Adhikari.

The AASU delegation also raised the CBI inquiry demand against sacked minister Ripun Bora who was arrested in New Delhi on June 3 while trying to offer bribe of Rs 10 lakh to a sleuth of the agency.

UNI MT KK KLC1746