PARADIP: Members of truck owners’ associations in Paradip staged a demonstration in Paradip Refinery of IOCL on Saturday protesting use of dumpers in transportation of petcoke (petroleum coke). At least 15 dumpers were not allowed to transport petcoke from south refinery to north refinery in the plant site by the agitators on the day.
The IOCL has commissioned 15 MTPA grassroots refinery and one of the residue by-product of the plant is petcoke, which is a solid high carbon material. While IOCL’s Paradip refinery has a target to produce 1.3 MT of petcoke annually, the first phase production had started on Friday. To export the petcoke, the IOCL had proposed to transfer the material from south refinery to north refinery using a combination of pipe conveyor and troughed conveyor belt to silos located at Rapid Loading System (RLS) in the north refinery.
From here, the material was to be transported to different places by rail. However, as there is delay in construction of conveyor belts due to lack of environment clearance and in absence of railway tracks in the refinery site, the IOCL decided to transport the petcoke for export to Paradip Port through dumpers. Accordingly, the IOCL engaged a stevedoring agency, Swastik Stevedores Private Limited, for transportation of petcoke and the latter roped in Atal Bihari Vajpayee Tipper Owners Association for the work. About 15 dumpers were used to transport petcoke on Friday. However, protesting use of dumpers, three truck owners’ associations - Paradip Truck Owners’ Association, Jaganath Truck Owners’ Association and Jagatsinghpur Truck Owners’ Association - staged demonstration at Rangiagada in the plant site on Saturday.
They said if trucks are not engaged in transportation of cargo within IOCL, it would hit livelihood of 1,500 truck owners. Members of ABV Tipper Owners’ Association and Swastik Stevedores claimed that the demand of truck owners’ associations to transport petcoke using trucks will not be cost-effective as the company will spend four times more towards transportation cost if it agrees to do so.
Later in the day, Additional District Magistrate Biswajit Biswal held a meeting of IOCL officials and members of both the associations. Following discussions, members of the truck owners’ associations agreed to allow 15 dumpers for transportation of petcoke for the time being. They threatened to resort to agitation again if the matter is not resolved before the second phase of transportation. Meanwhile, four platoons of police force have been deployed to avert any untoward incident at the plant site.