A day after an incident of crude oil leakage was reported from the Barauni-Assam pipeline in Bihar’s Khagaria district, officials of Oil India said the pilferage was allegedly caused by miscreants.
The officials are yet to estimate the damage caused.
Himanshu Singh, superintendent engineer (SE) of Oil India along with other officials are taking stock of the situation at the site and repairing the damaged pipeline.
The SE and security officer Madhusudan claimed, “It was not the leakage, it was cut open to pilfer crude oil.”
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Singh added that the supply was stopped as soon as they came to know about the same.
“Earlier we thought it was leakage. It now appears that the pipeline was deliberately damaged to extract oil”, he alleged.
He said, “At the point number 1095 on Barauni-Assam pipeline, the theft was committed by fitting a nozzle after drilling into the pipe.”
The security officer added that they are assessing the damage and subsequent action will be taken after that.
“We are assessing the loss and will lodge an FIR once we complete the assessment of the loss”, he said.
However, he did not rule out the possibility of the nexus of a big racket behind the pilferage.
He claimed that the vestige of the wheels of the tanker on the soiled road was still there suggesting that the pipeline was deliberately damaged.
Meanwhile, the maintenance team continued to repair the damaged pipeline which is expected to be functional by Wednesday evening.
Station house officer (SHO) Abhay Kumar Tiwari said, “FIR has not yet been lodged.”
