By Bhupen Goswami

Guwahati : Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal today dashed off a letter to the Centre to clarify about the apprehensions over the possible privatization of Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) in view of the Centre’s move to privatize the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL).In view of the purported reports doing rounds for the last few days regarding handing over of the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) to private player and the consequent private investment in NRL where in BPCL is the largest shareholder, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal today dashed off a letter to the Central Government.

It may be noted that BPCL is the largest shareholder of Numaligarh Refinery Limited and if BPCL is privatised, NRL will go into the hands of private player. In the wake of this, Sonowal today sent a letter to the Central Government.NRL – a product of the historic Assam Accord – performing creditably but it had also been poised for a massive Rs22,000-crore expansion. “BPCL privatization will definitely put in jeopardy NRL’s expansion plans as well as its future. NRL is an entity attached to the people’s hearts and it has been running with profit,” sources said, adding that instead of transferring its ownership to a privatized BPCL, it can be merged with OIL (which has 26 per cent stake).