Coal production grinds to a halt

​Bhadrachalam: Miners in the Singarenei Collieries stayed away from work on Thursday in response to strike call by five trade unions. The miners are protesting against the Collieries management and the government in taking a decision on dependent employment for their children.

Coal production came to a grinding halt due to strike. The impact of the strike was visible at the opencast mines and underground mines at Sattupalli in Khammam district, Kothagudem, Manuguru, Illandu in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district, opencast mines at Koyagudem.

The teams of the police and Singareni security force personnel have fanned out across the collieries. The leaders of all five national unions addressed the protest demonstration in front of the head office of Singareni collieries at Kothagudem. Expressing solidarity with the striking workers, leaders of CPI (M), CPI, Congress, TDP, and various people’s organisations also addressed the workers.

Singareni Collieries Director (Operations) Chandrasekhar Rao discounted the impact of the strike and stated that there was hardly any impact of the strike in all the areas. He said in all 92.33 per cent of the corporate office staff was present in the office. According to him, 43 per cent of workers each in Kothagudem area and Yellandu, 64 per cent of employees worked in Manuguru in the first shift.

In the second shift 78 per cent of staff worked in the corporate office, 66 per cent in the Kothagudem area, 52 per cent in Yellandu and 60 per cent in Manuguru attended. He appealed to the workers to resume work and cal off the strike immediately.

Meanwhile, CITU leader Manda Narasimha Rao stated that the strike was successful in spite of the efforts by the management and the government to disrupt the strike. The leaders were arrested at Ramagundam and Bhupalapalle areas, but it did not deter the striking workers, he added.

TGBKS union leader are going round the houses of the miners, appealing to them to call off the strike.
Venkata Swamy (CITU), Miriyala Rangaiah (AITUC), Riza Mohammad (HMS) and the leaders of INTUC, BMS were arrested at Mandamarri, according to trade union leaders.

Miners resuming work
Realising the futility of the strike, a number of workers is resuming their duties in spite of the call given by the five national unions, CMD Sridhar said here on Thursday. In a statement released to the media, he complimented the workers for attending to the work.

He said that the workers were well aware that the government and the management were ready to resolve the problem of dependent employment. He recalled that after formation of Telangana State, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao announced Telangana increment and other benefits to the workers.

He regretted that the dependent employee process could not be taken forward due to the judgement by the Supreme Court. Anyway, the management was exploring ways to find a solution to the issue.