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SCCL stir: major demands conceded

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD FEB. 7. The indefinite strike by workers of the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) appears to be heading for a solution with the Andhra Pradesh Government climbing down and conceding some of the major demands.

Workers' unions, barring the CITU and IFTU, agreed to call off the strike only after the management ensures that the assurances were incorporated in the agreement.

During the negotiations held between the management and the unions in the presence of the Cabinet sub-committee members, the management agreed to terminate the contract signed by it with private parties for deploying the surface miner from the originally agreed 21 months to 8 months. The surface miner operations would, however, continue thereafter, but this time, the company would either hire or purchase the equipment which will be operated by the existing workers.

The provision of free power to hutments and colonies was another major demand conceded by the management at the behest of the Government. "We have asked the management to prepare a policy to provide power supply to all the workers' colonies and hutment areas in consultation with the JBCCI and there will be status quo on the existing connections till the policy is finalised,'' the Minister for Home, T. Devender Goud, said after talks with the unions. The Minister for Energy, K Subbarayudu, and the Minister for Roads and Buildings, T Nageswara Rao, were present at the discussions.

Explaining about the agreement, the SCCL Director (Personnel), G.S.G. Ayyangar, told newsmen that the management had agreed to replace all the SDLs operated by the private operators with the ones purchased by the company within one and a half months.

In respect of the penal rent recovery issue, the management had decided to treat the Singareni workers issue as a very special case and keep the recovery in abeyance for one year.

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