It is time for Coal India to get younger. The average age in the company, which was as high as 52 years in early 2011, should come down to 45 by end-2012. Having put a 15-year embargo on recruitment to as well as promotions within the executive cadre; the company has been witnessing fast depletion of its manpower, following the retirement of nearly 14,000-17,000 employees a year since 2010.

According to company sources, CIL will keep losing its trained, and perhaps tired, hands at more or less same rate till 2015-16. The exodus is expected to be minimal following 2020.

While the trend should definitely help the company cut some historic flab in the workers category; on the flipside, CIL's thin strength of executives was getting slimmer by 750-850 a year.

Against a mammoth army of 3,55,000 workers the coal major has only 16,000 officers — 3,000 less than the sanctioned strength — to ensure production growth. It is coincidental that the company's production is set to remain more or less stagnant for the second year in a row in 2011-12.

Recruitment drive

Alarmed by the loss of executives, the coal major entered the employment market in mid-2011. This fiscal, the company has recruited 1,500 young engineers and MBAs as ‘management trainees' beginning mid-2011. Steps were taken to promote 1,000 odd employees to the executive cadre.

But that is just the beginning. According to Mr R. Mohan Das, director (personnel and industrial relations), recruitment in the executive cadre should be stepped up during next four to five years.

“We are aiming for 1,000 campuses recruitments from Indian Institute of Technology and National Institute of Technology in 2012-13. Another 1,000 trainees would be added through open advertisements,” he said, adding that the recruitments were set to move up in tandem with future expansion.

A few thousands were added in the workers category also, mostly on compassionate grounds or against land acquisition.

The mass retirements, coupled with infusion of fresh blood, have had a dramatic impact on the age-mix. “The average age of employees is coming down and is expected to be around 40 years in next five years,” Mr Mohan Das said.

Falling age-mix

Logically, the entire trend should have offered CIL a unique opportunity to mechanise its mines, add to the ratio of skilled workers and improve upon operational efficiency.

In reality, mired in endless red-tape, the company has failed to procure even key opencast mining equipment such as shovels or dumpers for last four years.

The proposed procurement of an ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution has also been hanging fire for the last two years.

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