Mishra is the author of the book `Reengineering in a Public Sector Enterprise' in which he drew upon his rich experience at ECL. Mishra retired from there on January 31, 1996.

In an exclusive interview to The Financial Express, Mishra started off by saying that the closure of 64 mines would not help ECL apart from giving it some breathing space.

He pointed out that ECL could exist as a separate company for only a few years more, and the same fate was awaiting two other subsidiaries - Bharat Coking Coal Ltd and Central Coalfields Ltd.

Mishra said that if the union government was really interested in saving these three companies then the parent Coal India Ltd and its eight subsidiaries needed to be merged into one entity like in the case of Steel Authority ofIndia Ltd. In this system, the subsidiaries could function as separate divisions. This will help CIL to offset the losses of some of these divisions (now subsidiaries) by the profits made by the others. In turn, this will allow CIL to pay less corporate tax. In fact, CIL paid around Rs 1,200 crore to the government by way of taxes in 1997-98.

Comparing ECL's mines with those of Germany, Mishra said that the company "does not need any investment." In addition to this, German mines have an average depth of 800 metres while ECL's deepest mines are close to 600 metres.

He criticised both the company's management and its officials for non-performance, bitterly mentioning that nobody was willing to support him during his tenure as ECL CMD when he tried to initiate certain changes.He pointed out that coal-cutting machines used in ECL gave 3.23 cuts a day (it is now 2.67). Mishra said, "had it been a private sector, these machines would have given 15 cuts a day."

One of the major reasons for ECL's currentplight are the investments worth Rs 4,000 crore in unutilised or damaged machinery made in the last 20 years and huge unserviceable, damaged and obsolete store materials.

Political leaders of national parties in the coal belt, on the other hand have gone on record saying that they will not allow the management to close even one mine. Former CPI(M) MP and general secretary of Citu-affiliated Colliery Mazdoor Sabha of India, Haradhan Roy, agreed with Mishra's view that CIL should be structured like SAIL. He said that his union would not allow either closure of any mine or retrenchment of any worker.

Roy alleged that ECL management was known for taking hasty decisions. He said that the management had closed six collieries on April 3, 1998. However, out of these Pure Searsole was reopened on September 3. Before closure, in April, Pure Searsole was producing 80 tonnes of coal per day, while now it produces 135 tonnes a day.

It is learnt that Citu has urged the workers to step up production. At Bansracolliery in Kunustoria area, production has jumped to 725 tonnes from 425 tonnes per day.

Roy was critical of heavy investments made for the purchase of machinery, which have remained unutilised. ECL officials admitted that the company had made investments of Rs 3,493.49 crore for purchase of machinery since 1974-75. However, production during this period rose only up to 27.44 tonnes in 1997-98 from 23.16 tonnes in 1974-75.

Citing an example of funds misuse, officials said that unserviceable, damaged and obsolete store materials accumulated since 1988-89 accounted for Rs 145.72 crore. When contacted, Congress MLA of Haripur (near Asansol), S Banerjee, said that he also would oppose the closure. However, he was critical of the West Bengal government's nominees who did not oppose the issue at the ECL board meeting on October 22.

German machine failsA large diameter boring machine, newly imported from Germany, failed the trial run at Nimcha colliery in mid-November, in the presence of a reporter ofThe Financial Express. Coal India Ltd had purchased this machine for a sum of Rs 21 crore from Unicare. The total equipment, including a compressor, a pump and a rotary table was supplied by German company Writh. The machine (No. 24146 86RZ) had run for 39 hours without load, but failed when load was applied. The German technicians operated the machine for 12 hours, while 20 employees of ECL, trained in Germany for running the machine, were unable to operate it.