The agitating officials of Coal India Ltd called off the strike with effect from 3 am on Friday. The decision was taken after a marathon meeting between CIL top management and the Coal Mine Officer’s Association of India (CMOI) on Thursday.

The three day strike, from March 13 to March 15, was called in protest against prolonged indecision on payment of performance related pay (PRP). Agreed in 2007 wage agreement, the payment could not be released due to fallacies in the guidelines issued by department of public enterprises (DPE).

During the meeting on Thursday, the CIL top brass apprised the officers that after prolonged delay the committee of secretaries in the Centre finally nodded in favour of the national miner’s long pending proposal for payment of PRP based on consolidated net profit of Coal India.

The committee of secretaries is expected to officially convey its recommendation to the cabinet secretary on Friday. The latter is expected to take concurrence of Election Commission before placing the proposal for approval of the cabinet committee of economic affairs.

CIL had been seeking the government’s nod on the proposal for last six years. The efforts were especially evident in the last two years resulting into series of meetings at the Centre. However, the committee of secretaries failed to make the due recommendation for cabinet approval, due to lack of consensus within government.

During its meeting with the CMOI, CIL top brass requested the agitating officers to withdraw the strike call and wait for four to six weeks for possible implementation of the proposal.

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