The Howrah Ganatantrik Nagarik Samity – a local citizens' forum – has filed a public interest litigation before Constitutional writ jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court against Coal India Ltd (CIL), accusing the coal major of making “abnormal profits” through frequent price rise in the last three years.
The petitioners felt that CIL was making use of the price decontrol in 2000, in the absence of a regulator and extracting higher profit by raising prices without making adequate efforts to improve productivity and reduce cost of operations.
“In the last three years i.e., 2008-09 and 2010-11, while dispatch of coal remained more or less stagnant … net profit of CIL rose sharply from Rs 2,079 crore in 2008-09 to Rs 10,867 crore in 2010-11 – a colossal 422 per cent rise,” the petition said.
CIL posted zero production growth during the last fiscal and is suffering from a shortfall so fat this year.
Talking on behalf of the petitioners, chartered accountant turned social activist Mr Subhash Dutta said that the High Court will announce the date of hearing of the petition on January 2.
Operational inefficiencies
According to the petitioners, CIL suffers from apparent operational inefficiencies (like lack of mechanisation in underground mines, high maintenance time, low efficiency in maintenance, material logistics, equipment repositioning, technical bottlenecks, poor management practices and others) leading to low productivity.
Instead of addressing such inefficiencies the company is passing on the cost on the consumers thereby creating hurdles for national growth.