Production and transportation of coal in Jharkhand was completely stalled due to the five-day strike, which began on Tuesday, called by the trade unions across the country. They are protesting against 'disinvestment and restructuring of State-run Coal India' and to press for their other demands including the roll-back of what they call as "process of denationalising of coal sector".
Trade union leaders claimed that the strike was successful in completely stalling the production and transportation in Jharkhand. “Strike is 100 per cent successful in Jharkhand while in West Bengal the production was affected by only 75 per cent,” said lallan Chaubey, general secretary of National Colliery Union. All the five unions are intact this time and the strike will continue for five days, said Chaubey.
He, however, affirmed that they were ready for talks if the Government wants to take initiative in this regard. Meanwhile, the strike is likely to affect power production adversely as well as productions in other industrial units across the country.
“If the strike prolongs, our indigenous coking coal requirements for operations may also get adversely affected”, said acting chief of communications at Bokaro Steel limited Manikant Dhan. Electro Steel at Telgaria in Bokaro also said that their production will also get adversely affected if the strike continues for a few more days.
“Coal crunch will badly affect the power production across the country which has indirectly reduced other industrial productions not only in Jharkhand but across the country, said an industrialist Sambhu Nath Prasad of Bokaro.
“According to an estimate, a 24-hour power cuts incurs a loss of approximately Rs10 crore, and pushes back the progress by two months”, added Prasad.“This strike may create a massive impact on power production but the Government did not leave any option open for us,” said CITU vice-president Basudev Acharya.
According to Acharya, the Government has taken wrong steps. “If the bill gets passed, it will affect the fate of more than seven lakhs employees (including three lakh regular and four lakh contractual workers),” he added.
All trade unions of the Coal India had boycotted a meeting called by the Coal Minister last week and finally went for a five days nationwide strike on Tuesday, likely to affect production of up to 1.5 million tonnes a day, official sources of BCCl said.
The Central Coalfields limited (CCl) officials, however, claimed that the strike was effective in the collieries only, while the work in the office headquarters remained unaffected. The officials also claimed that the strike was likely to end soon as talks are on between the CIl officials and the union leaders.
“We are very much at work and around 60 per cent attendance was registered with all emergency services intact on Tuesday,” said Manager (Operations) of CCl RS Mahapatra. Services however, remained partly affected in the collieries hitting production and transportation, he said.
Meanwhile, steps have been taken by Coal India to meet the demand of coal to the power plants in order to ensure uninterrupted power production during strike. “We are supplying additional volume of coal to the power plants,” said a CIl official.
In Hazaribagh also, local union leaders with their supporters stopped all activities in coal field areas. loading and transportation of coal was not reported till late in the evening in Charhi area. Dispatch of coal also got hampered as the workers refused to work as per the call of the united forum of trade unions.
In Giridih also trade union leaders did not allow the loading and dispatch of coal. According to general secretary of UCWU lakhan lal Mahto, the loading and dispatch of coal came to a grinding halt in all three coal areas like CCl Kathara.
In all three coal areas, including Kathara, B&K and Dhori in Bermo, agitating workers did not allow loading and dispatch of coal. The joint action committee of the five Central Trade Unions also demonstrated at the pit-heads and offices on Tuesday.