Coal India Ltd’s (CIL) new Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Sutirtha Bhattacharya only took up his post on Monday, January 5. He was greeted with a five-day strike that started the next day. Even worse, another strike is scheduled for January 13. Together, it has been reported, the two are likely to cost CIL 8-10 Mt of lost production. With the workers’ unions showing little sign of relenting, CIL officials fear for the production target this financial year. “CIL is already 3% 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 achieved a 7.3% 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% 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, previously in charge of Singareni Collieries (SCCL) since May 10, 2012.
Bhattacharya took over the mantle of CIL from A K Dubey, additional secretary to the coal ministry, who was filling in as CIL Chairman since June 26, after the post was vacated by S Narsing Rao.
Officials indicated that Bhattacharya had appealed to workers to think again about striking. “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 in 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.
Unions have called for scrapping of the clause from Coal Mines Ordinance that allows for commercial mining by private firms and divestment of at least 10% of the government stake in CIL. They are also calling for regularising of contract workers engaged in mining, extending National Coal Wage Agreement wages and other benefits to existing and prospective captive mine workers.
The strike — the biggest of its kind in nearly four decades — ended late Wednesday night after talks between the government and workers yielded a breakthrough. “Our meeting with the coal minister was satisfactory. We were given assurance that the interests of Coal India will be protected,” said S.Q. Zama, Secretary-General of the National Mineworkers Federation.
