Many in north Chennai take the Manali Main Road to reach their workplaces. For G. Madhavan though, this 21-km-long road is workplace.
The young police constable from Kodungaiyur spends most of his time on the stretch, guarding the oil steel pipelines between Chennai Petroleum Company Limited (CPCL)’s oil refineries in Manali and the Chennai Port.
He is part of H-9 IOC police station, which has a strength of 36 policemen, including an inspector and sub-inspector. The police station was established in 1986 for the purpose of guarding these pipelines.
In three shifts, these policemen guard the pipelines against the possibilities of pilferage and vandalism and also look for leakage.
Every day, these policemen are assigned specific routes they have to monitor. The entire pipeline route between the refineries and the port is divided into four ‘police beats’; each beat is monitored by a pair of policemen in three shifts. They policemen have to cover their routes on foot, which is the only way they can effectively spot oil leakage and pilferage.
All these policemen are local residents, which enables them to turn up quickly in the case of an emergency.
“Like other policemen, we are enlisted for other duties such as VVIPs bandobast and election work. However, our primary duty is to ensure the safety of these oil pipelines round-the-clock. If there are cases of pilferage, we report them and the cases are registered by other police stations that have jurisdiction over the locality where the theft took place,” says a policeman at the station.
In 1965, Madras Refineries Limited (MFL), now known as CPCL, set up its first refinery in Manali with a capacity of 2.5 MMTPA (Million Metric Tons Per Annum).
Trouble in the 1970s
Pipelines were laid connecting the refinery to the port. In the late 1970s, pilferage of oil from unguarded pipelines were frequently reported.
After failed attempts by the company’s staff to prevent the pilferage, the Union Government directed the State Government to establish a police station on the premises of CPCL.
Following disinvestment by the Centre, CPCL became a part of IOC in 2001. Since then, the police station is known as IOC police station, but its duty remains unchanged.
The IOC police station is one of 12 police stations in the Washermenpet Police District, which includes R.K. Nagar, Tondiarpet, Royapuram and Kasimedu police stations.
The police station is now getting a new building on the same premises — Lube Blending Plant of IOC in Tondiarpet.
