Singareni Collieries pays dividend after a gap of 37 years

 The shareholders of the company recently approved of the payment of 5 per cent dividend, amounting Rs 86.70 crore on a net profit of Rs 417 over an annual turnover of Rs 3,689 crore for the year 2002-03.

 The company has wiped out all its accumulated losses and entered the net profit regime for the first time in 27 years. The company has also parted with around Rs 65 crore towards paying dividends for the workers for the last three years.

 RH Khwaja, the chairman and managing director of SCCL, formally handed over the dividend cheque to N Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, at the Secretariat.

 Appreciating the contribution of the SCCL management and the workers to the turnaround achieved by the company during the last few years, Naidu hailed that the company had now emerged as a role model not only for Coal India Limited(CIL) but also for the entire public sector in the country.

 The company came a long way after a prolonged financial illness, culminating in a whopping Rs 1,219 crore accumulated losses when the central government referred it to the Board of Industrial and Financial Restructuring (BIFR ) in 1996.