Government wakes up to J&K coal miners demands

Wednesday, 08 Feb 2012

Minister for Industries and Commerce, Mr SS Slathia said the government will sympathetically consider the demands of coal mine workers in view of the tough nature of their job.

He asked the management of Jammu & Kashmir Minerals Ltd to come up with a workable and financially viable action plan to meet the genuine demands of the workers and employees.

Chairing a meeting of Board of Directors, JKML, Mr Slathia, according to an official statement, constituted a high level committee comprising Commissioner/Secretary, Industries and Commerce, Special Secretary, Finance, Managing Director, JKML and representative from the Law Department.

The committee will examine all the demands of the coal mine workers and employees adding that recommendations and suggestions of the committee shall be deliberated in a Special Board Meeting of the corporation shortly.

Mr Slathia said that “We shall have to take a humanitarian view of the demands and problems of Coal Mine Workers in view of their tough job as compared to other PSUs.”

The Minister asked the management to formulate target oriented and production linked business plan to ensure a sound economic base for sustained growth of the organization.

He also called for introducing Voluntary Retirement Scheme in a big way to minimize wage bill of the corporation.

He directed for increasing coal and gypsum production which has a vast market, adding that production should be the bench mark of the Corporation’s business plan.

He said there is a potential of 3500 tonne of coal and 100,000 tonne gypsum production which needs to be exploited in the next year adding that the Corporation should reactivate its men and machinery to achieve this target.

(Sourced from www.greaterkashmir.com)