Coal workers to go on strike from today

January 06, 2015 00:27

A section of CIL and SCCL workers will go on 5-day strike from today even as the government has called a meeting of trade union leaders in the morning in a last-ditch effort to avert the agitation.

The five trade unions including INTUC and AITUC, have given a strike call to press for their demands including roll-back of the "process of denationalising of coal sector" and stopping "disinvestment and restructuring" of Coal India.

Meanwhile, Coal India Ltd has already stepped up supplies to the power plants, which have been facing fuel shortages, to tide over the likely disruption of supplies due to the proposed strike.

"CIL is suppling extra volumes of coal to the power plants and the Railways is fully cooperating with the coal PSU," an official said.

The workers and employees of CIL and Singareni Collieries Company Ltd will go on 5-day strike from Tuesday, the Indian National Mineworkers' Federation said in a statement.

The coal ministry's decision to call the meeting of the leaders of the five trade unions tomorrow has been described as "childish" by the Federation.

The strike is likely to result in production loss of up to 1.5 million tonnes a day and may hit supplies to power plants which are already grappling with fuel shortages.

CIL, which accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal production, has a workforce of over 3 lakh.

All five major trade unions of the coal PSU -- BMS, INTUC, AITUC, CITU and HMS -- had boycotted a meeting called by Coal

Minister Piyush Goyal last week.

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