Review extension of lease to Kharsang Oil Field:Arunachal comm

A state level committee under the Geology and Mining department of Arunachal Pradesh has recommended the state government to review extension of lease period of Kharsang Oil Field in Changlang district to Geo Enpro Pvt Ltd for its failure to deal with exigencies and crisis.
The Monitoring and Vigilance Committee chairman Toko Anil in his report referred to the blow out in Gas Well No. 60 in the oil field on June 30 last and stated the incident happened due to utter negligence and incompetency of the company.
Anil, who went to the site on July 5 last for inspection accompanied by Circle Officer and OC Kharsang police station, alleged the company had utterly failed on its corporate social and environmental responsibilities.

The report, a copy of which was made available to the media, said after the blow out was reported, engineers of the company attempted to control the situation, but failed.
Subsequently, experts and engineers were requisitioned from Oil India Ltd and ONGC-Sivsagar in Assam, but they also failed to plug in the gas leakage.
"A high alert was sounded and around 2,000 people living in five villages in the vicinity of the oil field were evacuated and in a few villages, residents were debarred from cooking for days because of fear of fire and explosion," the report said.

"As the gas contains more than 90 per cent highly inflammable methane gas, its impact on the environment, specially on the surrounding reserve forest, is immense. The villagers are still under fear and many man days have been lost as the people could not go to work," the report said.

The chairman further recommended the state government to impose a fine to the tune of Rs 100 crore to the company to compensate the serious damage it caused to the environment and the local villagers.
"The amount should be deterring so that it sets an example and compel companies to fall in line and take environmental and social safety issues seriously," Anil added.