Ranchi, July 29: Union Coal Minister, Shri Pralhad Joshi will visit Ranchi on 30th July. Here, he will talk to the Chief Minister of the State (Jharkhand), Hemant Soren and Coal India officials as well as trade union leaders. AK Chaudhary, GM of Coal India, has also issued letters to trade union leaders including BCCL, ECL, CCL, CMPDI officials.
After meeting with representatives of the state government and officials of Coal India and subsidiaries, he will also hold talks with trade union leaders and have lunch with them.
During this time, they will try to overcome the impasse on commercial mining. All the trade unions including BMS, CITU, AITUC, HMS, INTUC had gone on strike in the coal sector for three days against commercial mining and they have also announced to strike again on August 18 against the proposed divestment or buyback of shares of the PSU. The Hemant Soren government of the state has also filed a PIL against commercial mining in the Supreme Court. Minister Prahlad Joshi has started talks to deal with these deadlocks.
During this time, he will try to tell the trade unions that the privatization of the coal blocks is not going to cause any harm to Coal India, and will also inform the state government about the benefits and increase in the revenue of the state government. Issues like environment and displacement are also likely to be openly discussed with the state government in this meeting.
In an exclusive interview with CoalNet, Ramendra Kumar, President of AITUC said that he strongly opposes the Govt decision of ‘Commercial Coal Mine Auction’ and ‘dénationalisation of coal industry’. He further said that he will not be going to attend the meeting tomorrow with the Union Coal Minister as there is no point meeting him because the center has already decided to act on its own. No one is discussing the trade union demands and their demands are still being ignored.
Earlier he also expressed his anger by stating that “To benefit the companies that have been declared insolvent in other countries, the Modi government has resorted to commercial mining. He said that by benefiting the bankrupt companies of America, Poland, Australia, Germany, the Indian government believes that foreign policy will benefit.”
