News from Marwar

Ahmedabad, May 30:

Uncertainty prevails over Cairn India’s 74-km section of the 670-km-long Barmer-Jamnagar crude oil pipeline. Landowner farmers in 24 villages of Salaya and Bhogat taluks in Jamnagar district are demanding adequate compensation for the pipeline passing through their fields.

Work remains suspended unofficially since August 2010, and officially since April 26.

Even if the farmers agreed now, the company will be able to resume work only after monsoon this year.

A company source told Business Line on Wednesday that Cairn India has already increased the consideration thrice but the farmers are not satisfied. “We are waiting for a final decision from the officials concerned at Gandhinagar.”

Cairn India is “not acquiring” land but only the Right to Use, for which the farmers would be paid lease rent per square metre of land used and compensation for the crop loss in the pipeline area, if any, the source said.

The world’s longest heated and insulated 24-inch pipeline passes through two districts of Rajasthan (Barmer and Jalore) and six talukas in Gujarat (Banaskantha, Patan, Ahmedabad, Surendranagar, Rajkot and Jamnagar). Out of 670 km, 154 km length is in Rajasthan 516 km in Gujarat. Cairn India and its 30 per cent joint venture partner, ONGC, had planned to invest Rs 5,500 crore on the pipeline in Gujarat.

The pipeline reached Salaya on April 23, 2010, while construction at the Bhogat terminal was started on July 15, 2010. Subsequently, the farmers, believing that their land was being “acquired”, demanded increased compensation, eventually forcing Cairn India to officially direct its contractor, L&T, to suspend work and close its camp at Khambalia on April 26 this year.

The suspension of work was, apparently, due to a tussle between the Congress MP from Jamnagar, Mr Vikram Madam, and Cairn India on the compensation issue.

But Cairn India’s inability to lay the 74-km section , through 24 villages between Salaya and Bhogat, has deprived the IOC’s Mangalore refinery of crude oil from Rajasthan. About 8 km of the pipeline passes under the Arabian Sea to connect the Bhogat terminal to the Single Point Mooring (SPM) from where IOC transports crude oil to Mangalore.

Since June 2010, the Barmer-Salaya section of the pipeline is delivering crude to Reliance and Essar refineries as also to IOC for the Panipat refinery via Radhanpur and Viramgam.

Cairn India currently produces 1.75 lakh barrels per day (bpd) of crude from Rajasthan which is targeted to increase to 2.40 lakh bpd in 2013. It is providing 80,000 bpd to Reliance, 47,000 bpd to Essar and 25,000 bpd to IOC for its Panipat refinery. Additionally, it also supplies crude oil to the PSU’s Koyali refinery at Vadodara as per needs.

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The Common Law Admission Test, popularly known as CLAT, is the entrance examination for admission to 14 National Law Universities (NLUs) in India. Every year, thousands of students from all over the country take this exam.

CLAT results were announced on May 28, it led to confusion over supposedly incorrect declaration of ranks and wrongful allotment of institutions to students. The declared results were taken down by the National Law University, Jodhpur (NLUJ), CLAT 2012 organising institution, on the evening of May 28 itself, creating further confusion. The CLAT convener admitted these errors and mentioned that he is trying to resolve them judiciously (source: Legally India: www.legallyindia.com/201205312859/Pre-law-student/clat-2012-university-list-may-contain-errors-that-will-be-fixed-judiciously-in-june-says-nlu-j-vc).

CLAT 2012, comprised a number of questions being allegedly outside the declared CLAT syllabus for the year. Aspiring candidates found that about 70% of the Legal Aptitude section of the paper featured questions that required prior knowledge of legal provisions, while the syllabus had clearly stated that "candidates will not be tested on any prior knowledge of law or legal concepts. If a technical/legal term is used in the question, that term will be explained in the question itself." In addition, the general knowledge/current affairs section of the paper, which was supposed to test candidates only on their knowledge of 'current affairs,' "broadly defined as matters featuring in the mainstream media between March 2011 and March 2012," allegedly had 'static General Knowledge' questions on architect Le Corbusier's citizenship and shapes of oceans, to name a few.

A writ petition was filed before a single judge at the Delhi High Court abut a week ago (prior to the publication of results), against the organisers of CLAT 2012 for posing questions that were allegedly out of syllabus {Writ Petition (Civil) No 3208 of 2012}. However, the petition was dismissed, in limine, or without going into the merits of the case. The judge held that the petition was premature as the results had not been declared then, and suggested that the petitioners could approach the courts once the results were declared. A similar writ petition was also filed before the Allahabad High Court and is pending.

Courtesy: Myeducationtimes.com