Four trade unions of Coal India have served notice for a one-day strike on November 26 against the commercial mining of coal, the state-owned company said in a regulatory filing on Monday. The country's largest coal mining company said efforts would be made to avert the strike and conciliatory process is going on, it said, without divulging further details.
"Four trade unions of CIL have served one-day strike notice in CIL and its subsidiaries on 26.11.2020. Efforts would be made to avert the strike and conciliatory process is going on," Coal India (CIL) said in a filing to BSE.
On November 17, 10 central trade unions had announced they would go ahead with their planned nationwide general strike on November 26 and also voiced their support for a two-day farmers' agitation.
Coal India, which accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal output, operates in 84 mining areas spread over eight states of the country. It has 352 mines, of which 158 are underground, 174 opencast and 20 mixed mines. The company also operates 12 coal washeries.
Earlier in August, five trade unions of CIL had served notice for a one-day strike on August 18, which was later withdrawn. Coal India (CIL) worker unions were protesting against the proposed divestment or buyback of shares of the PSU.
The unions had observed a three-day strike from July 2 to protest against the commercial mining of coal.
In a separate filing, CIL said that its board approved the proposal to hike the non-coking coal price by Rs 10 per tonnes for regulated and non-regulated sectors. The price rise will come into force from December 1, 2020.
The PSU is also planning to invest Rs 5,650 crore ($763 million) by March 2024 to develop 14 solar projects to help power its mining operations and cut costs. The company would finance, in cash, nearly two-thirds of its plans to construct rooftop and ground-mounted solar power projects with a capacity of 3,000 megawatts (MW), while the rest would be funded through a joint venture with lignite miner NLC India, as per Reuters report.
The miner's output dropped for the first time in more than two decades in 2019-20 to 603 million tonnes. It aims to produce 1 billion tonnes of coal a year by 2023-24.
Ahead of the announcement, shares of Coal India ended the day's trade at Rs 122.70, up 1.03 per cent, against the previous closing price of Rs 121.45 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.