November 03, 2001

‘41’

CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE DISCUSSES MEASURES FOR REVIVAL OF EASTERN COALFIELDS

    The Union Minister of Coal and Mines, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan has sought the cooperation of Members of Parliament to give their well-considered views on revival of the sick Eastern Coalfields Ltd. (ECL). Speaking at a meeting of the Consultative Committee of Members of Parliament attached to his Ministry here this afternoon, Shri Paswan gave an overview of the ailing ECL and the outline for its revival as worked out by the Management of ECL in consultation with the Government in the light of the recommendations of ICICI and Chief Controller of Accounts. The Minister said that some of the measures for revival of ECL included reduction of manpower by 23,000 from the current 1,27,000 over a period of next three years without retrenching any worker, increase of coal production, financial support by the Government through Coal India Limited and further relief by the West Bengal Government in the form of reduction in cess to the level of royalty in other States to ensure its revival and to bring it out of wood especially from the purview of BIFR. The Minister said that the total financial liabilities of ECL as on September 30, 2001 were Rs. 1,346.81 crores.

    The Members, by and large, suggested that unless illegal mining, mafia operation, pilferage and leakage of revenue were curbed considerably, if not eliminated altogether, the revival packages for ECL in particular and pilferage in coalfileds in general would not work. In this connection, Members pressed for an in-depth discussion of measures for prevention of malpractice in coalfields, to which the Minister agreed that this would be main agenda for discussion in the next meeting to be held on December 13, 2001.

    The Minister expressed the resolve of the Government for increasing productivity of coal mines, curbing malpractices and leakage of revenue with iron hands. The Members were requested to give their suggestion in this regard to enable the Government to work out action plan for revival of coal industry. The Minister also sought the cooperation of Members in curbing corruption with heavy hands in coal fields. The Minister was happy to inform the Members that the Government has given free hands to management in revamping the coalfields. He also said that no retrenchment of workers and privatisation of Coal India Limited would be done. The Minister also directed the management of ECL to work out in consultation with the Government the proposal to shift the headquarters of ECL from Kolkatta to Ranchi in Jharkhand State, wherein there were two-third of coalmines of ECL.

    The Minister announced that the Government was considering steps for unification of subsidies of both profit making and loss making coalfields to get over the crisis of sickness and for an assured revival of ailing coalfields.