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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal are likely to meet the representatives coal workers' unions in the first week of July in an attempt to get employees on board for the proposed Coal India (CIL) disinvestment.
According to the coal workers' unions, they are likely to meet Coal Minister on July 5 and Prime Minister a day after.
All the five coal workers' unions, representing over 3,50,000 employees of Coal India, are opposing the proposed 10% stake sale in CIL, which is expected to fetch the exchequer about Rs 20,000 crore, half of the government's disinvestment target for the current fiscal.
The unions had earlier decided to put a strike notice after their joint convention held in Kolkata on June 24, but postponed the same until the July meetings.
"In the joint convention in Kolkata, there has been a decision that we will go for strike, if the government goes ahead with the disinvestment plan. Since we will be meeting Prime Minister and Coal Minister in the first week of July, we will take a final call after that," Jibon Roy, general secretary, CITU-ffiliated All India Coal Workers Federation, said.
The unions claimed there was assurance from former Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee at the time of the Coal India public issue in 2010 that there would be no further stake sale from the government.Also,according Roy, unions had signed an agreement with the coal ministry with a similar assurance.
The four other unions, who have joined the protest, are Indian National Mine Workers' Federation (affiliated to INTUC), Indian Mine Workers' Federation (affiliated to AITUC), Hind Khadan Mazdoor Federation (affiliated to HMS) and coal workers' union of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.
Prior to their meetings with PM and Coal Minister, representatives of all the five unions will meet on July 3 in Delhi to formally decide on the charter of their demands, which would also include opposition to CIL restructuring plan.
"We will hand over a memorandum with these demands to Prime Minister and Coal Minister. As of now it has been decided that we will give one month's time to the government to withdraw its disinvestment proposal in the meeting, unless we will resort to indefinite strike " AITUC national president Ramendra Kumar said.
Meanwhile, an inter-ministerial panel have already cleared the 10% stake sale in CIL through the offer for sale (OFS) route and subsequently Finance Ministry floated a draft Cabinet note on this. The Coal Ministry will give his comment on draft cabinet note after meeting the workers' unions.
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