The three-day nationwide strike by coal workers against the Government’s decision to open the sector for private players led to almost nil production in most of the mines, and dispatch of the fuel was totally blocked, a trade union leader said on Saturday. Five trade unions, including RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, of Coal India have been on strike since Thursday to protest against the government’s decision to start commercial coal mining.”The three-day strike in coal industry is big success...In most of the mines (in all the three days), production was nil and the dispatch was totally blocked,” Nathulal Pandey, president of HMS-affiliated Hind Khadan Mazdoor Federation, said.However, a Coal India official has said that coal production was 4.81 lakh tonne on Thursday, which is close to 38 per cent of the normal 13 lakh tonne per day, calculated as average of 10 days immediately prior to stoppage of the operations.CIL despatched 5.78 lakh tonnes on the first day of strike. This is around 42 % of the normal off-take of 14 LTs/day, as per referred calculation.A coal Ministry official said that on Friday CIL produced 5.55 lakh tonnes of coal Friday, which is 42.7% of the 10 days average production (from June 22 to July 1) of 12.969 lakh tonne.