lOCL-AOD's CSR prog benefitting various sections of society
Guwahati   17-Jun-2014

Digboi Refinery under IOCL-AOD is no mere historical identity as the world’s second oldest oil refining initiative; it is still vibrant at the point of its unbelievable run of 113 years since 1901.

It is a continuity that has passed through the changing hands of the erstwhile R&T Company, Burma OIL Company Limited, Assam Oil Company Limited and the present membership of the public sector IndianOil Corporation Limited retaining in the process, however, its older exclusive flavour of ‘Assam Oil’.

The refinery earned during the last financial year a number of highly competitive achievements: acquirement of crude throughout of 651.2 TMT exceeding the target of 650.0 TMT, best-ever MBN of 61.5 and lowest ever MBN of 10.0%, becoming the only refinery in the North-East to win the award for excellence in consistent TPM management from JIPM-Japan, attainment of the distillate yield of 73.5% and installation of a new Wax Palletisation unit – to name a few among several more.

On top of these, the CSR agenda of Digboi Refinery in recent years has shown inclusiveness and devotion to a totality of approach to community welfare. The agenda ranges from capacity building in the debilitating educational scenario of the disadvantaged rural side to boosting organic farming, from extending healthcare services to the out-of-reach villages to provision of pure drinking water to the children of numerous schools and colleges to prevent enteric diseases, from creating batches of world-class nurses in service of humanity to healing the diseases of the domestic livestock to safeguard steady flow of support to village economy, from running of automated learning centre to creation of toilet facility in the households of adjoining villages under Swachta project, et al.

In a press meet held on June 12 in the conference hall of AOD and addressed by Barun Borpujari, Executive Director In-Charge of IOCL-AOD in the presence of Kaushik Borah,Executive Director, Amitabh Mishra, General Manager (Technical), Apurba Kumar Nath, Chief Administrative Manager and several other heads of departments, a re-assuring picture of AOD’s unified and committed vision of CSR activities converged. The Assam Oil School of Nursing this year upgraded to a college offering BSc Nursing course and the Shikshak Dakshata Vikash Abhiyan skill development mission among school teachers, appear as milestones of the variegated CSR agenda.

The Assam Oil Nursing College is the flagship of AOD’s CSR projects and the intake capacity has been enhanced this year from 20 to 40 with free accommodation and provision of monthly stipend to every student. Established on June 4, 1986, the school has completed 28 years and has produced a total of 316 qualified nurses with overseas acceptability.

The Shikshak Dakshata Vikash Abhiyan is a unique kind of teacher-training initiative run by the IOCL-AOD in coordination with the district-level education authorities of the Govt of Assam. The programme aims at the development of soft skills among teachers working in the rural and remote interior schools. The project has already benefited 225 teachers coming from 42 provincialised schools. The initiative is the first of its kind among the PSUs of the NE and has succeeded in turning teachers into ‘pull factors’ for children to attend school regularly with eager interest. The heartening saga of CSR agenda of AOD continues.