Singareni employees get 30% bonus

Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday announced a 30 per cent profit sharing bonus for the employees of state-owned Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL).

As a Dasara gift, the chief minister decided to give a 30 per cent share of the profits of the SCCL for the year 2021-22 to the Singareni employees.

As per the chief minister's instructions, Principal Secretary Narsinga Rao issued an order to the Singareni Chairman and Managing Director to pay the special incentive to Singareni workers immediately before Dasara.

As part of this, Singareni Company will pay Rs 368 crore to the eligible workers. The profit-sharing bonus announced this year is one per cent higher compared to last year. The state government had announced a 29 per cent bonus in 2021.

Last year, the company had allotted over Rs 350 crore for the bonus and each National Coal Wage Agreement (NCWA) employee had received Rs 72,500 as bonus.

Singareni Chairman and Managing Director N Sridhar had said earlier this month that the company was confident of achieving an annual turnover of Rs 32,000 crore and earning profits to the tune of over Rs 3,000 crore.

He was also confident of achieving the target of producing 70 million tonnes of coal production during 2022-23. He had appealed to the coal miners and others to work in this direction to achieve the targeted coal production and promised sops and welfare schemes after achieving profits of over Rs 3,000 crore.

During 2021-22, the company had posted a turnover of Rs 26,000 crore, registering 47 per cent growth over the previous year.

The SCCL also supplied 53.6 million tonnes of coal to thermal power stations during 2020-21.

The SCCL is jointly owned by the Government of Telangana and Government of India on a 51:49 equity basis. The Singareni coal reserves stretch across 350 km of the Pranahita - Godavari Valley of Telangana with proven geological reserves aggregating to a whopping 8,791 million tonnes. SCCL is currently operating 20 opencast and 24 underground mines in four districts of Telangana with a manpower of around 43,895, according to the information on the company's website.