Coal supply crunch may hit S India power units

Power plants in the southern States may face fuel shortage as coal mining operations in the Talcher coalfields on Monday faced undue and uncalled for stoppage by contractors’ workers leading to about 2.6 lakh-tonne coal dispatch loss.

Around 6,000 contractors’ workers in coal mining and transportation works went on a strike following the directions of local MLA, paralysing supplies to the consumers, which has a majority of power producers.

The strike was instigated after a meeting held on June 24 at Jagannath Area headquarters on 5- point agenda given by Mahanadi Coalfields Contractual Transport Workers Union (MCCTWU), Talcher general secretary Narahari Sahoo.

The meeting, which was attended by Director (Personnel) himself along with Area General Managers and other officials of Talcher from management side and the MLA, Talcher along with members of the MCCTWU, concluded on a happy note after the management agreed to all the points but one which was not legally feasible. The management had not agreed on the demand of deployment of 131 contractors’ employees at (Railway) Sidings No. III & IV of Jagannath Area as the siding operations are being carried out departmentally and there is no scope of reverting back to contractual mode of operations.

This was discussed at the level of Chief Secretary in the past and MCL management had categorically expressed its inability to engage contractors’ workers as the siding was already operating departmentally.

On this ground, stoppage of all the contractual operation of mining/transportation of coal in all the areas of Talcher coalfields was resorted to. The work stoppage today resulted in coal production loss of 2.3 lakh tonne and despatch loss of 2.6 lakh tonne from Talcher Coalfields,

which is likely have a negative impact on coal consumers, particularly power plants in southern States, including Odisha.

Besides, a day-long work stoppage resulted in estimated loss of revenue to the tune of Rs 20.6 crore to MCL, and consequently   Odisha exchequer will suffer a loss of Rs 14.67 crore while the Central exchequer will undergo a loss of Rs 1 crore.

The company also suffered loss to the tune of 1.22 lakh cubic meters over burden removal, which has a negative impact on coal production in future.