The largest miner of dry fuel in the world, Coal India, has recorded an output of 46.60 million tonnes in the month of January. It has missed its target by 6.9 per cent for the month. The company said in a filing to BSE that the output target of the company for January was 50.09 million tonnes (MT). But the Company gave no reasons for missing the target. Coal India Ltd. missed its targeted output of 403.56 MT for the first 10 months of the current fiscal. It has produced 388.98 MT of coal during April-January period. It was stated by CIL that the two-day strike by workers last month had affected its daily output by almost half of the total production for these two days. It stood at 1.47 million tonnes.

About five lakh coal workers have gone on a strike. This was called by trade unions and this was one of the biggest ever industrial actions in the last four decades. They were protesting against the disinvestment in Coal India and denationalisation of coal mining in India. The unions had planned for a five-day strike, but called it off after the end of the second day. This was followed by an over six-hour-long marathon meeting between the trade union leaders and the Ministry of Coal and Power, Piyush Goyal, among all the others.

All the four major trade unions of India -Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and Hind Mazdoor Sangh (HMS) – had observed strike on January 6, and January 7 at Coal India Ltd and its subsidiaries. The State-owned Coal India’s production target for the current fiscal has been set up at 507 MT.