CIL operations unaffected as CITU goes on one-day strike on commercial coal mining

New Delhi: The Central Trade Unions of Coal India Limited (CIL) went on a one-day strike on Monday against the government move of allowing commercial coal mining

The one-day strike was initially called by the four central trade unions of Coal India Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), BMS, HMS and AITUC on Monday. Minister of Railways and Coal, Piyush Goyal invited the four trade unions for a meeting in Mumbai following which the strike was later withdrawn.

However, only CITU went on the one-day strike.

In a major reform in the coal sector since its nationalisation in 1973, the government in February this year allowed private companies to mine the fossil fuel for commercial use, ending the monopoly of state-run Coal India. INTUC said although it was not keen on withdrawal, it had to do so after two unions had walked out.

CIL said that it made elaborate arrangements and a multi-pronged plan to ensure that there was no loss to production.

“The arrangements were so elaborate that the operations in all the subsidiaries of CIL were normal today except for few stray incidents where protesters tried to sit on dharna but it didn't succeed and no adverse effect on production related activities was reported anywhere,” a government release said.