Coal India workers opt for VRS, shirkers shrug it off

Rakesh Sood

New Delhi, Jan 1: The state-owned Coal India (CIL) with over five lakh employees is facing a difficult situation as a large number of efficient and productive staff has opted for voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) and those identified as surplus are not willing to quit.
The recent development has thrown the company’s restructuring and future plans out of gear.

According to sources in the coal ministry, the public sector undertaking has identified as surplus around 55,000 employees and received Rs 135 crore for enforcing VRS, but it is facing the problem of selecting the employees to offer the facility.

It is learnt that as many as 25,000 strong productive workforce has made up its mind to march out of the seven subsidiaries of CIL adding to the woes of the public sector undertaking.

The company is reportedly going slow with the final list. The authorities feel that efficient and technically equipped workforce should not leave the organisation taking advantage of the VRS, sources said.

Out of its seven subsidiaries, during the last fiscal, three — Eastern Coalfields (ECL), Bharat Coking Coal and Central Coalfields (CCL) have been incurring continuous losses. These three have accumulated losses of over Rs 4,000 crore. While these subsidiaries are facing the problem of unwanted manpower, which they want to tackle even by paying compensation, they are actually facing shortage of productive underground manpower. ECL and CCL have shortage of both equipment and manpower for the operation of the underground mines.

The PSU has a proven deposit of about 84 billion tonne coal. When contacted, the Union minister for coal and mines Ram Vilas Paswan said, the government has investment plans to the tune of Rs 18,000 crore during the 10th Plan period to achieve the projected production of 400 million tonne and implement restructuring plan.

“Negotiations with national level labour unions are on to implement VRS proposals to the targeted factions but it would be with a human face,” Mr Paswan said.