Oil ministry to constitute three-member committee to look into drifted ONGC vessels

The Oil Ministry has set up a three-member committee to enquire into the sequence of events leading to the drifting of ONGC vessels in the cyclone Taukte that cost several lives, as per an official statement. The Committee will comprise Amitabh Kumar, Director General of Shipping, S.C.L. Das, Director General of Hydrocarbons, and Nazli Jafri Shayin, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence. The committee is expected to submit the report in a month.

The committee will enquire “whether the warnings issued by Meteorological Department and other statutory authorities were adequately considered and acted upon,” as per the statement. It would investigate if the standard operating procedures for securing the vessels and dealing with disaster management were adequately followed. The committee would also examine the “lapses and gaps in the systems leading to the stranding and drifting of the vessels” and recommend ways to prevent such incidents in the future.