SCCL in financial crunch due to pending bills in Ramagundam

Ramagundam: Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), which is digging out coal for the production of power and supply it to the nation, is facing severe financial crisis as several bills are pending.

The consumers and organisations that are purchasing coal from SCCL are not clearing the bills. The government that is collecting money from Singareni Company in the name of tax is not showing the same interest in clearing the bills of various government departments due to the company, which are in pending. Even the state government, which is purchasing coal and current from Singareni company, is not paying the amount to it.

The SCCL is supplying coal to Genco company that is present both in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh States. A major portion of electricity that is produced by the company is supplied to Transco company of Telangana State.

Around 60,000 million tonnes of coal is mined out every year by the Singareni Company, out of which 17,000 to 20,000 million tonnes of coal is supplied to TS Genco for supplying required quantities of electricity, it is supplying electricity through Jaipur power production centre and then to Grids through Transco.

Bills worth about Rs 10,000 crore are in pending, which have to be paid to the Singareni Company by various government departments. The government-based organisations only utilising coal and power supplied by the Singareni Company, but the same organisations are not showing interest in paying the bills. Due to this, despite earning profits, the Singareni company is unable to operate daily wise and facing lot of hardships to give salaries to the employees of the company.

The SCCL did business to a tune of about Rs 25,828 crores last year and earned about Rs 1,766 crore profits. But this of no use, as the organisations that purchased coal and electricity haven't cleared the bills till date. Last year, the company mined out 64.4 million tonnes of coal and sold about 67.7 million tonnes along with the coal that was stored earlier.

TS Transco has to pay Rs 5,000 crores to the SCCL for the electricity, which it had purchased from the Sinagerni Company where as TS Genco must pay Rs 2,600 crores. Meanwhile, AP Genco has to pay Rs 600 crore to the Singareni Company along with huge amounts of money from power producing centres of neighbouring States Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

The Company has to pay Rs 250 crore as salaries to its employees. But with bills worth crores of rupees pending, the company is facing financial crunch in paying the wages.

For 2018-19 financial year, the Singareni company earned a profit of Rs 1,766 crores, so the company must pay bonus to its employees along with their salary. As the bills are in pending, the company did not declared bonus till date. Meanwhile, the Singareni company had paid around Rs 27,467 crores to the government in the name of taxes. Out of which, it paid Rs 13,105 crores to the State government and Rs 14,362 crores to the Central government, besides paying Rs 1,844 crores to the district Mineral Fund Trust to six districts.

INTUC general secretary B Janaki Prasad said the government is neglecting the Singareni Company. The interest, which it has on Transco and Genco, is not the same on the company, which is a very good revenue source for both State and Central governments.

It is the responsibility of both the governments to take the initiation to make the government organisations to clear their bills due to the Singareni Company and also must exert pressure on TS Transco and Genco to clear their bills, Janaki Prasad demanded.