A spokesperson from the National United Forum Against Privatisation of Oil PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings), which is spearheading the agitation labelled Naik's call for calm and patience nothing more than a "mere sermon" and that the minister's appeal was "without any specific offer or assurance not to disinvest or privatise oil PSUs."

"The Government was misleading the people and not placing facts before them. [The] Centre [is] acting under pressure from Multi National Companies who were out to grab the highly-profitable and cash-rich oil PSUs," said the unnamed spokesperson.

Talks between the trade unions, the PSUs and the Government - represented by the Chief Labour Commissioner - collapsed because the trade union representatives claimed, "there was no concrete offer from the Government."

Following the collapse of the talks, Naik went public to call for calm and guaranteed the Indian public that, "there would be no disruption in the supply of petrol, diesel, LPG and CNG as the dealers had adequate supplies." The PSUs are said to already have contingency plans laid out to ensure that there would be no interruption in their supply line to the public.