KARIMNAGAR/KHAMMAM
The 48-hour pan-India strike called by the joint forum of central trade unions in protest against the Centre’s policies “detrimental” to the interests of workers across sectors hit normal life in various parts of the State’s industrial areas, affecting coal production in the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL)‘s coal mines on the first day of the two-day nationwide strike on Monday.
An overwhelming number of coal workers struck work in support of the strike in all the 11 areas of the State-owned SCCL during the first shift. About 88% of the total 28,084 men on roll in the first shift did not report for duty across the SCCL’s coalfields spanning the erstwhile composite Karimnagar, Khammam, Warangal and Adilabad districts, sources said.
A thin attendance of 21.03 % was recorded across the SCCL’s coalfields in the first shift which slightly improved to 24.95 % in the second shift, sources added.
Around 50 % of the SCCL’s daily coal production has been hit at a time when the government-owned coal mining giant has ramped up efforts to produce around 2 lakh tonnes of coal per day to reach the set annual coal production target of 68 million tonnes in the current fiscal, which is slated to end on March 31, 2022.
However, SCCL sources claimed that about 86% of contract workers turned up for duty mainly in overburden removal work in the opencast projects, which contributes the lion’s share to the overall coal production.
According to SCCL sources, the coal production during the first shift stood at 92,714 tonnes.
Trade union activists owing allegiance to all the central trade unions - including CITU, AITUC and INTUC, barring the BMS, staged sit-in demonstrations at multiple locations in the State’s coal belt region.
The activists of the TRS affiliated TBGKS also took part in protest demonstrations held in Kothagudem, Godavarikhani and other coal towns.
Members of the Singareni Collieries Workers’ Union (SCWU), affiliated to the AITUC, staged a demonstration in front of the RK-7 underground coal mine in Srirampur area of Mancherial district.
Slogans denouncing the Centre’s attempts to auction the four coal blocks in Telangana for commercial mining rent the air.
In Khammam, a host of leaders of the Congress, CPI (M), CPI and CPI (ML) Praja Pandha, besides several trade unions and mass organisations, squatted in front of the TSRTC bus depot in protest against the Centre’s “anti-worker” and “pro-privatisation” policies.
They raised slogans demanding scrapping of the four labour codes and the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) scheme.
The TSRTC bus services were affected in various parts of the old undivided Khammam district.
The impact of the bandh was felt in Khammam and several other major towns as various educational institutions, business establishments remained shut. The banking services and business transactions were also hit.
The TSRTC buses plied near normal in the old undivided Karimnagar district and elsewhere in the north Telagana, where the strike evoked mixed response on the first day of the two-day strike.
Employees owing allegiance to the National Federation of Postal Employees and Federation of National Postal Organisation staged demonstrations in Karimnagar, Khammam and other towns in support of the pan-India strike.
