Oil India Limited (OIL) has drawn up a compensation plan for the villagers affected by the blowout at one of its natural gas-producing well in Tinsukia district of Assam.
The exploration major had shifted 1,610 families from over a dozen villages around the Baghjan well that has started spewing gas “uncontrollably” since the morning of May 27.
“We will be providing ₹30,000 to each affected family in immediate relief. The detailed beneficiary list with names and bank account details will be prepared by the district administration,” an OIL spokesperson said from the company headquarters at Duliajan in Dibrugarh district.
The relief amount was decided at a tripartite meeting on Friday among an OIL team, led by its human resources director Biswajit Roy, the district authorities and representatives of a youth organisation of Baghjan.
A larger compensation package is expected after a consultant company engaged by OIL submits its environmental impact assessment report.
The CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur, and the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, have also been asked to conduct detailed impact assessment studies.
The spokesperson said three experts from Alert Disaster Control, Singapore, would reach the site on June 7. The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore has issued a one-time “exceptional clearance” for a charter aircraft to carry the experts — the firm’s managing director Michael Ernest Allcorn and senior well control engineers Craig Neil Duncan and Edward Harris McLeod.