Coal production and its shipments were hit on Wednesday at South Eastern Coalfields limited (SECl) mines in Chhattisgarh as workers stayed away from work as part of the five-day ongoing strike called by trade unions.
“On the second day of the five day strike, the production has been halted at majority of the mines including Gevra mine in Korba district,” a top official at SECl headquarters, Bilaspur, told The Pioneer. Heavy deployment of police was made at mines located at Kusmunda, Dipka, Gevra, Chirmiri, Bhatgaon, Baikunthpur, Bisrampur and Hasdeo but workers did not allow even officials to enter their offices. The striking employees raised slogans against the NDA regime and called the deployment of heavy police force at mines in Chhattisgarh ‘a move to terrorise workers to give up agitation’.
AITUC General Secretary Ajay Vishwakarma said, “Government is adopting all sorts of tactics to mount pressure on Coal India employees to allow mining but we are determined to halt it entirely,''.SECl is the largest coal producing company in the country. The coal reserves of SECl are spread over Chhattisgarh and MP and the company is operating altogether 89 mines with 54 mines in Chhattisgarh The five trade unions representing the workers of Coal India have gone on a strike since Tuesday, demanding that the Government should not disinvest its shares in Coal India and they also don’t want any private participation in the coal sector. In December 2014, the central government had re-promulgated the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Ordinance which allows auctioning of coal blocks. The ordinance also has an enabling provision for commercial mining of coal by private companies.