Coal India officers call off strike; output loss 4 lakh tonnes

Says if assurances are not met in 4 weeks, will go on indefinite strike

Coal India executives today called off their strike on the second day after the management assured them it would push for early placement of their demand for performance-linked pay before the Cabinet.

The Coal Mines Officers Association of India (CMOAI) agreed to end the strike, which reduced output by 4 lakh tonnes, after a seven-hour meeting with the management headed by Chairman and Managing Director S Narsing Rao at the state-owned company's headquarters in Kolkata last night.

The production loss added to the woes of the world's largest coal miner, which accounts for over 80% of the nation's output and is projected to miss this year's target by more than 10 million tonnes.

"We made an appeal to them (executives) to call off the strike as the Committee of Secretaries has already made a recommendation for approaching the Cabinet for modifications with regard to the performance-related pay. Since the elections are around the corner, the government needs to go to the Election Commission on the issue," Rao told PTI.

The management has sought four to five weeks for a final decision on the view as "the Cabinet will only approve the proposal if the Election Commission agrees to it," Rao said.

"We suffered a production loss of about 4 lakh tonnes due to the strike yesterday. The loss has been less this time as we utilised the supervisors and workers to the extent possible. About 15,000 of the total 18,000 executives went on strike," Rao said.

The average production loss during a strike is estimated at about 1.7 million tonnes a day during peak production months like March, he added.

Rao said meeting the production target of 482 million tonnes this financial year seems "impossible due to various reasons like disruptions, clearance and law and order problems, among others."

"For the current fiscal, we are looking a shortfall of more than 10 million tonnes," he said.

The strike has been "deferred" for four to five weeks on the CMD's assurance that the government will look into the demands, CMOAI Secretary General P K Singh told PTI.

Singh said the CMD informed the CMOAI that the Committee of Secretaries, which was scheduled to look into the demand for performance-related pay on March 14, will now consider the matter on March 12.