Neyveli strike enters second day

The strike by Neyveli Lignite Corp's employees owing allegiance to the DMK-supported Workers Progressive Union and Pattali Thozhir Sangam entered the second today.

The management,however, said production in all three mines and the power plant remained normal on the first day as about 4,000 officers and supervisors besides workers on essential duty attended duty.

The workers are demanding higher wages.

"About 15,000 workers barring those on essential duty continue their strike since last night while negotiations with them are on for recall of the decision. The government is keeping a watch on the situation and have deployed CISF to avoid any untoward incident," a senior NLC official told PTI over phone.

There is no impact on power generation as production on the first day remained normal with the help of nearly 350 supervisors on both the shifts and about 4,000 officials besides workers on essential duty, he said.

Earlier workers had sent a notice to the company, announcing their decision to strike work from Wednesday night in support of their demand for wage revision due from January 2007.

The Miniratna company is a lignite-based power plant and employs about 19,000, including 15,000 workers. Workers are demanding implementation of additional increment from January 2007 besides 71 per cent hike in allowances from January 2009.

"Most of the demands raised by the workers for wage revision have been accepted barring the cut-off date for additional increment and hike in allowances," the official said.

"No PSU has offered one additional increment of 3 per cent over and above 25 per cent fitment benefit while NLC has agreed to. We've also agreed to 71 per cent hike in allowances, the highest allowance given by any PSU, including the Navratnas and Maharatnas, from January 2010," he added.

He said negotiations with recognised unions are on while conciliation proceedings before the regional labour commissioner is in the process, adding, "it is expected that normalcy would be restored soon."

NLC has an installed capacity of 2,490 Mw and it plans to augment this capacity to about 4,300 Mw by 2012. The company's projects under execution include a 1,000-Mw project in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, a 500-Mw extension of the Neyveli plant, and a 50-Mw wind power project.

It registered a profit after tax of Rs 1,604.86 crore in FY10 compared to Rs 1,046.01 crore in the previous year.