CIL executives strike postpone its board meeting to March 20

The board is likely to deliberate on public-private partnership model for coal mining in the meeting to be held next week

Coal India (CIL) has postponed its board meeting scheduled on Thursday by a week on account of a planned three-day strike by company executives.

"CIL board meeting which was scheduled for March 13 has been postponed because of the strike as the HR director and other functional directors of the PSU will be busy in monitoring the situation during the strike," a CIL official said.

The board meeting has been rescheduled to March 20, the official said.

"The board is likely to deliberate on public-private partnership (PPP) model for coal mining in the meeting to be held next week," the official said.

The Coal Mines Officers' Association of India had served a strike notice for three days from March 13 for their demands, including performance-related pay and a new pension scheme, among others, state-owned CIL said in a filing to the BSE. The company said efforts were being made to reconcile the demands.

The officers want finalisation and payment of performance-related pay pending since 2007, immediate refund of recovered performance-linked pay advance from retired executives, immediate implementation of a new pension scheme and removal of pay anomalies of different grades in general and junior grades in particular, among others, it added.

The proposed strike may affect production and dispatches by about 4 million tonnes of coal. The mining company is expected to fall short of its target of 482 million tonnes for 2013-14 by more than 17 million tonnes.