BS People: Nirmal Chandra Jha
Monnet Ispat gets a workaholic 'coal man'
On 31 January this year, analysts and economists across the globe watched in dismay as the world’s largest coal miner, Coal India Ltd (CIL), announced a 25 per cent wage hike for its mammoth 363,000 workforce. The hike announced was also a mere one per cent more than the last time’s 24 per cent five years ago.
To add to the mystery, the worker unions, who had begun negotiations by demanding a 500 per cent increase, emerged happier and even promised to work harder. That the miner had managed to keep its annual wage outgo to a minimum of Rs 6,000 crore, too, was no less a feat. And all of this, bang in the middle of a historic slump in output.
But, how did the miner manage to pull off what is today a widely acclaimed success story? The credit goes to the meticulous planning and execution of a seemingly simple strategy formulated by the then Coal India Chairman Nirmal Chandra Jha. “Wage hike depends on how well you negotiate and that, in turn, depends on your bargaining power. I began the negotiations by offering a mere 10 per cent hike. So, in the end, everybody emerged satisfied,” Jha says. The mining engineer from Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad, resigned at midnight on the same day as the wage resolution.
For Jha, who hails from a small village in Darbhanga in Bihar and has led a life of hard work, taking tasks assigned to him to their natural, timely and successful conclusion is a matter of habit. Add to this his four decades of experience in the Indian coal industry. It is no surprise, then, that Delhi-based steel maker Monnet Ispat and Energy Ltd chose Jha to be the head of its mining division. Monnet is in the process of ramping up production from its captive mines to suit its rapidly expanding steel and power capacities.
Jha says he took up the job as he is not used to idleness. Even while acting as chairman of CIL, Jha was handling at least two important positions—as director, technical, and director, marketing. “If I am healthy, I have a sound mind and I have experience from which the country can benefit, why should I not take up a new job?” Jha asks, adding that hard work has become a way of life for him.