Strike to ruin CIL's hope to meet production target this year

Challenge at outset for new CMD Sutirtha Bhattacharya who took charge yesterday

Coal India’s new chairman and managing director (CMD) Sutirtha Bhattacharya, who took charge on Monday, will be greeted with a five-day strike starting on Tuesday.

Another strike is scheduled for January 13. Together, the two  likely to cost Coal India Limited (CIL) — with a work force of 3,50,000 — a production deficit eight to 10 million tonnes (mt).  With the workers’ unions unrelenting, CIL officials fear for the production target this financial year. “CIL is already three per cent short of the target in the first nine months of 2014-15. If there was any hope to make up for it in the last quarter, the five-day strike will make that impossible,” an official said.

Coal India recorded a 7.3 per cent rise in production at 342.39 mt in the first nine months of the current financial year. The target for 2014-15 has been set at 507 mt.  The company, which accounts for 80 per cent of domestic coal production, missed its target of 482 mt for 2013-14, producing 462 mt.

“Ramping up production and increasing of supplies are immediate focus areas. We would be diligently following the setting up of three important railways lines in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, which would help in unlocking huge reserves and increasing supplies,” said CIL CMD Bhattacharya, earlier in charge of Telangana-based Singareni Collieries since May 10, 2012.

Bhattacharya took over the mantle of CIL from A K Dubey, additional secretary to the coal ministry, who was holding additional charge as Coal India chairman since June 26, after the post was vacated by S Narsing Rao. Although no comment was available from the new CMD on the strike, officials indicated that Suthirtha Bhattacharya had put forward an appealed to workers to refrain. “The strike is not against the CIL management but the government. Unless, the government withdraws the coal ordinance, this strike and protest will continue,” said Jibon Roy, general secretary, All India Coal Workers’ Federation (AICWF), affiliated to the Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU).

AICWF, Indian National Mineworkers Federation, Hind Khadan Mazdoor Federation,  Indian Mine Workers’ Federation, and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh are supporting the strike. AICWF has also called for a strike on January 13 against the coal ordinance.

The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Ordinance was brought by the Narendra Modi-government in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision cancelling 214 coal blocks.

Apart from facilitating auctioning of the cancelled coal blocks, the ordinance allowed private players to mine coal and sell it in the open market, which has been particularly opposed by the unions.

Causes for stop-work

• Scrapping of the clause from Coal Mines Ordinance that allows for commercial mining by private firms and divestment of at least 10 per cent of the govt stake in CIL
  

 

Regularising contract workers engaged in mining, extending National Coal Wage Agreement wages and other benefits to existing and prospective captive mine worker

Effect on production

• CIL is already three per cent short of the target in the the first nine months of FY 2014-15
   
• Even if there was any hope of make up for the loss in the last quarter, the five-day strike will make that impossible