It is long time that I as an Army Officer ( then Maj Sarbjit Singh, Signals) in 1980 had the honour to head a team of technical Army professionals and have abundance of support of civilian Technical experts in manning Oil India control centre at Nunmati ( Guwahati) Assam and help the Nation to break Assam Oil blockade. Assam youth had control over flow of oil from all Assam oil wells and oil could go to all refineries within Assam but not to Baruni in West Bengal. They had written all over the wall and bridges in Assam" Will give blood but not Oil". The national was suffering oil shortage and there was just no solution in sight .The PMO at Delhi planned a grand strategy to train selected Army personnel under technical experts of Oil India . Late Major Gen JS Nanda ( then Chief Signals Officer Eastern Command, Calcutta) selected various M Tech / ME qualified officers from Corps of Engineers, Signals and EME.. I being M Tecxh in Computer Science from IIT kanpur and having n been Operations Manager for five years at Army EDP center , New Delhi was one of the officers to be trained in operations of Oil Pipeline System.

In 1980, I was posted in 5 Mountain Division Signal Regiment at Tenga Valley and was deployed in an operational exercise about 70 Kms beyond Bombdila in Aunachal Pradesh. .I got an urgent message from by commanding officer ( then Lt Col PD Bhorgava- later Lt Gen Pd Bargava ) that I was to immediately move to base at Tenga valley and then move to HQ 4 Corps at Tezput for very special and secret task. I was to be flown away from Tezpur to some secret location for some training (details not known). I was excited and curious of such an important where I was suddenly taken off from operational exercise and sent on very special mission. After long and hard journeyof 170 Kms by Army truck I landed up at Tezpur Airport. I was received well and given a cup tea and rushed to awaiting AN12 ( large Russian Built Transport Aircraft) wher more than 15 officers and five Junior commissioned Officer were already seated for take off. Within minutes we were off to unknown journey. After 1.5 hours of tiresome air journey we were at Indian Air Force station Bagdogra. It was evening and we wree wisked away by Army truck which moved through lots of muddy roads to take us to Kishanganj ( in West Bengal) Oil India Pumping Station. We wree place in tended accommodation and after quick dinner had sound sleep.

It was 8 AM when we were assembled and first time told what this move and training was about. Mt Jaganathan CMD , Oil India , Chief Technical Officer , Kapoor and many others have flown in from New Delhi to brief us about this important and secret mission.