State-owned Coal India (CIL) on Friday said a group of executives has served a three-day strike notice from March 13 for not finalising their demands for performance related pay and new pension scheme, among others.
“Coal Mines officers’ Association of India (CMOAI) has served strike notice for 3 days with effect from March 13, 2014 to March 15, 2014 against non-finalisation of PRP (Performance Related Pay), New Pension Scheme and other demands,” CIL said in a filing to BSE, adding that efforts are being made to reconcile the same.
The CMOAI had earlier said that it may resort a three-day strike if its demands were not met.
“Significantly, all the Maharatna PSUs except Coal India Ltd have already been given order for payment of Performance Related Pay (PRP) by their ministries concerned...We are constrained to communicate to you our strike notice w.e.f March 13, 2014 to meet our genuine and justified demands,” CMOAI had said in a letter to Coal India CMD.
The demands include finalisation and payment of PRP pending since 2007, immediate refund of recovered performance-linked pay advance from retired executives, immediate implementation of new pension scheme and removal of pay anomaly of different grades in general and in particular junior grades among others, it added.
Earlier, the Department of Public Enterprises had strongly objected to the Coal Ministry’s proposal on PRP for executives of CIL’s subsidiaries from its consolidated account, stating that this would have wider ramifications as other PSUs may seek similar dispensation.
As per the DPE guidelines, in the absence of sufficient profit before tax (PBT), loss-making CPSEs are not allowed to distribute performance related pay and there is no concept of providing PRP based on the consolidated account of holding company.
However, the Coal Ministry had sought permission for allowing CIL to determine the corpus of PRP due since 2007 on profit before tax based on its consolidated accounts and not from the individual accounts of the subsidiaries.
CIL will have to shell out about Rs 200 crore on account of PRP to loss-making subsidiaries, including Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL), if the proposal is accepted.
The Coal Ministry in its proposal had said that CIL is the holding company which appointed executives and controlled the cadre, also transferring functionaries from one arm to another on promotion.
At present, as per the 2007 pay revision, PRP is directly linked to Profit Before Tax and the rating of a PSU besides performance of individual executives.
CIL produces over 80 per cent of domestic coal output. It has 8 subsidiaries: ECL (West Bengal), BCCL (Jharkhand), Central Coalfields (Jharkhand), South Eastern Coalfields (Chhattisgarh), Western Coalfields (Maharashtra), Northern Coalfields (Madhya Pradesh), Mahanadi Coalfields (Orissa) and Central Mine Planning and Design Institute (Ranchi).
CIL achieved an output of 366.57 Million Tonne (MT) between April-January, missing the 383.88 MT target for the period.
