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To face the world market, the public sector major Coal India Limited (CIL) will have to overcome constraints such as small and uneconomic underground mines, unskilled manpower, poor work culture and problems relating to land acquisition and rehabilitation, said yesterday the Union Minister of State for Coal & Mines Dr. Dasari Narayana Rao addressing the members of the Consultative Committee attached to his Ministry. The Minister said, Government recently has revised the wages of the employees of the coal industry to raise the morale of the workers whose contributions can only make the company globally competitive. In a meeting convened by the Minister the top management and the union leaders have agreed on creating a new work culture in the public sector coal companies.
CIL is the largest coal company in the world and has potential to be globally competitive. It has abundant coal resources in the lease hold areas, wide geographical spread of coal mines, well developed marketing network, surplus resources for investment and support of Central and State Government agencies which enable the company to face competition in the international market. Dr. Rao said, the company has vast experience in development and operation of large scale mines and planning and designing capability of global standard. It has a strong planning base and a number of open cast projects have been independently planned by the company.
The minister said CIL offers a wide range of opportunity for prospective investors in the coal sector. Coal India at present seeks co-operation in the areas of technical, operational and commercial areas for entering into mutual beneficial relationship with the foreign agencies. CIL through its seven coal producing subsidiaries and one planning & designing consultancy subsidiary has raised nation's coal production from a level of 78 million tonnes (MT) at the time of state taking over mines to currently 323 MT making India the third largest coal producer in the world. The company is now keen on investing in frontier technology i.e exploration of coal bed methane and underground coal gassification.
The Chairman, CIL, Shri Shashi Kumar, in a presentation brought out the potential of the company to be globally competitive and the bottlenecks that stand in the way of its progress. The members of the Committee stressed improving the safety standards and work culture in the company. They also pointed out to check the pilferage of coal and proper allocation of coal to the user industries.
The following members of the Parliament were present: S/Shri Chandra Shekhar Dubey, Nikhil Kumar Choudhary, Punnulal Mahale, Chandramani Tripathi, Jual Oram, Dharmendra Pradhan, Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Furkan Ansari, Rudra Narayan Pany, Surendra Lath, Smt. Ingrid Mcleod and Kamla Manhar.
DS/SCH
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