Coal news and updates

CIL officials abstain from work, chairman convenes meet

March 13: Almost all the officials at Coal India Ltd (CIL) and its subsidiaries took part in a three-day strike beginning March 13 called by the Coal Mines Officers' Association of India, to press for settlement of pay-related issues, a senior official from the company told ICMW.

ICMW learnt that CIL Chairman S Narsing Rao, in a last-ditch effort to impress upon the association to call off the strike, is likely to meet its senior officials at CIL's headquarters in Kolkata later during the evening.

"The Chairman, S Narsing Rao, held a meeting with functional directors of the company during the day to take stock of the situation due to the absence of officers from their work. The chairman also invited representatives of the association to discuss the issue once again," a source in CIL said.

Meanwhile, the official said officers' attendance level at CIL's headquarters in Kolkata as well as at its subsidiaries was almost zero as nearly all the officers opted to participate in the strike.

"The details of the attendance percentage are not available as of now as these will be compiled later in the evening after the first shift ends at 4 pm. But attendance of officials across the company is very thin," the official added.

"The extent of production loss during the day, because of the strike, would be known by tomorrow, but it appears that there would not be much of a loss on the first day of the strike because of the continuation of the production process from yesterday," the official said when asked about the extent of production loss due to the strike.

"It was also found that the supervisory officials just below the rank of officials took extra initiative at some of the mines to ensure that production loss is minimal. But the actual situation would be known only tomorrow," the official said.

According to ICMW's estimates, more than70% of a day's production at CIL was affected because of the strike and the situation will aggravate in the next two days if no initiative is taken from the government's side and the strike continues.

"A lot of work has been outsourced by CIL to private sector companies. Because of that, production did not come to a complete standstill. Coal movement at SECL's Korba and Kusmunda mines remained largely unaffected," a source told ICMW from Korba.

CIL's average production per day is slightly more than 1.50 million tons during the peak production period of January-March.