To make up the loss suffered in production and dispatch of coal for three days due to the strike call given by the trade unions to some extent, the management of Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) has modified the play day guidelines to allow workers to resume work in the opencast mines and coal handling plants on Sunday.
According to the company authorities the financial loss to the company due to the three-day strike was ₹120 crore with a production loss of 4.5 lakh tonnes at 1.5 lakh tonnes a day. The management asked it workers and officials to put in extra efforts to achieve the targets fixed for the year by meeting the daily targets first.
The management has changed the norm for working on play day (Sunday) by reducing the number of musters (shifts) from four to two during the week keeping in mind the needs of power generation and other units depending on coal supplies from Singareni. Workers who work a play day would get wages for two musters. Accordingly, the company asked all those working in the opencast mines and coal handling plants to resume duties on Sunday.
During the talks held with trade unions at the Regional Labour Commissioner office on Saturday, the management reiterated that the proposal to auction JVR OC-3, Shravanapalli, Koyagudem Block-3 and KK-6 Incline mines and hand them over to SCCL for mining after removing them from auction list was a policy decision taken by the Centre and a resolution was possible in Centre’s purview. The management offered its cooperation when the unions stated that they would visit Delhi to meet the Coal Minister and others on the issue.
On other demands of the unions, the officials of Union Labour Department suggested that the two sides resolve them through talks. Accordingly, the two sides agreed to meet again on January 20 to discuss other outstanding issues.
The management also stated that over 10 letters were addressed to the Coal Ministry not to include the four blocka in the auction list and hand them over o SCCL for mining and the Chief Minister had written to the Prime Minister twice.
