Coal India Ltd employees can look forward to a fresh installment of 40 per cent of their wage arrears as per the 1996 wage board award by the month end.
The company has already paid 40 per cent of the arrears and the present instalment would involve an outgo of about Rs 1,200 crore.
"We had paid 40 per cent of the arrears in December 2001 and the Coal ministry has directed us to pay another installment of 40 per cent as per the promise made by the minister (Ram Vilas Paswan) to the employees. The payment would be made before March 31," Coal India chairman N K Sharma said.
The decision would benefit about 5.4 lakh employees of Coal India and its eight subsidiaries, Sharma said.
Asked about the verification drive to check illegal offtake of coal, Sharma said that coal and mines minister Ram Vilas Paswan had held a review meeting of the coal sale policy with the chiefs of the subsidiary companies on March 21.
The meeting took up the issue of the vast difference in the figures of non-existent companies as reported by the vigilance departments of the coal companies and state governments.
As per state government reports, only 10 per cent of the linked customers (entities which had tied up with the coal companies for their supplies) in the non-core sector were either non-operational or non-existent. As against this, the vigilance department of CIL, which had made random checks on five per cent of the 7,015 linked customers, found that nearly 70 per cent were not using the supplies and diverting them to the black market.
The minister has directed Coal India to step up the verification by its own subsidiaries and now 15 per cent of the linked customers would be checked by the company's vigilance departments.
Under the drive to check diversion of coal to the black market, the supplies to 2480 linked customers have been stopped, the ministry was informed.
Sharma said coal was now available under the open sale system and the sponsorship scheme in which state governments made recommendations on coal linkages has been discontinued. Moreover, the commodity was on the open general license and large users were allowed to directly import their supplies if required.
Asked about the competitiveness of Indian coal in view of the relatively high ash content, he said, "While we cannot change what nature has bestowed us with, Coal India is making every effort to encourage use of right technology to minimise production costs. We have some washeries, and even users can set up their units to make the fuel cleaner."
