Coal news and updates

 

The Centre’s efforts to push through the coal mines bill as a “priority item” in the winter session have been delayed by the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.

 

“There are complex issues that will have to be sorted out to avoid ramifications in and outside the House. These are being looked into,” a parliamentary affairs ministry source said.

 

In October, the government promulgated the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Ordinance, 2014, to facilitate auctioning of 204 of 218 coal blocks — 42 of which are functional — that were cancelled by the Supreme Court in September. The ordinance will have to be legislated into law by Parliament within six months of its promulgation.

 

The ordinance empowered the Centre to e-auction coal blocks to make the process transparent and fair. The other features were that coal mining would be opened to the private sector to enable “optimal utilisation of the natural resource”, as finance minister Arun Jaitley had said.

 

Right now, Coal India alone can excavate and sell coal to end-users. But it has not increased its production rate over the years.

 

The RSS-affiliated BMS has flagged several concerns that it conveyed to the power and coal minister, Piyush Goyal, on November 12. Goyal assured the representatives that he would inform the Prime Minister after he got back from Nepal and even try to set up a meeting.

 

Goyal met the delegates of other national unions subsequently. However, BJP sources said “placating” the BMS was their “sole concern”.

 

Several calls and text messages to Goyal went unanswered. A government official familiar with the ordinance and the bill dubbed the BMS’s concerns “unreal”.

 

BMS general secretary Virjesh Upadhayay listed the “lack of coordination between different ministries” as the “root problem” and not Coal India’s “under-mining”.

 

“Coal India has worked to an optimal capacity but the government is to be faulted for not creating adequate infrastructure for enhanced production. Coal is not lifted, why?” he asked.

 

A joint strike proposed by the BMS and national trade unions — including Citu, Intuc and the Hind Mazdoor Sabha — to protest the “creeping privatisation regime” of the Modi government on November 24, the opening day of the winter session, was called off after the BMS cried off.

 

The BMS, which has a 1.25 crore membership and controls the major PSUs, is the country’s largest trade union. Even Left sources said they were “forced” to jettison the ideological issues they had with the RSS and work in tandem with the BMS since 2009 because of its “growing dominance” among the “proletariat”.

 

Upadhayay said “political partisanship” was the reason for the BMS’s withdrawal. “First, the other unions did not consult us when they decided to strike. Second, a similar strike was planned when the UPA was in power. The issues were identical. But Intuc and the others struck an agreement, again on their own, with the government and called off the strike.

 

“Today just because there is a non-Congress, non-Left government, their action seemed politically motivated and partisan. We want to maintain our non-political character,” he stressed.

 

Asked how the government hoped to “pacify” the BMS and bring it on board on the coal bill, an official said: “We will tell them the bill does not impact Coal India at all. It is a response to an SC order.

 

“The BMS must understand that Coal India engages just 3-6 six per cent of India’s labour force. The rest 94 per cent or so work in the unorganised sector. It is this segment that will benefit greatly from the quasi privatisation.

 

“Is there anything terrible about introducing competition and greater efficiency in Coal India? About creating alternative systems of coal mining? Or selling surplus coal through bona fide means?”

 

The Centre’s point was to achieve its target of mining one billion tonnes of coal by 2020, the bill was the only option.

 

BMS sources said the time was “not yet appropriate” to launch an organised protest against the Modi regime.

 

“Yes, we often agitated against the Vajpayee government and quite successfully because it was a coalition and vulnerable. This government has a commanding majority, it is strong and still popular. In order to not lose ground, we too have to raise issues from time to time,” an office-bearer said.

 

 

Source: The Telegraph