Singareni Collieries Co Ltd suffered revenue loss of about Rs 600 crore due to the 34-days strike by its employees that was called off around midnight on Monday.

During the period, SCCL's production loss is estimated at over 30 lakh tonnes, and on many daysthe production was hardly 20,000 tonnes.

The company, which is a major supplier of coal to power stations in Andhra Pradesh and neighbouring States, notched up a production of 1.20 lakh tonnes on Tuesday.

“According to the agreement that was reached after midnight yesterday, only 60 per cent of the employees could resume work. We expect to touch our normal production level of 1.40 lakh tonnes tomorrow (on Wednesday),” a senior SCCL official told Business Line .

The strike was called off following an agreement between the employees' union and the management envisaging payment of some recoverable advance, besides bonus to all the employees.

The 60,000 employees of the company had joined the strike as part of the pro-Telangana agitation.

With coal production also affected at Mahanadi Coal Ltd's mines in Orissa due to heavy flooding and related transportation problem, the re-starting of production at SCCL mines will help other power units also. For instance, NTPC's Simhadri unit in Visakhapatnam, which depends on MCL coal to the extent of 40 per cent, will get some supplies from SCCL from Wednesday. Simhadri's generation was affected to an extent of 500 MW due to reduced supplies from MCL.

In spite of the pick-up in SCCL production, the shortfall of power in the State on Tuesday was around 30 MU (demand 263 MU), which was managed by imposing power cuts. Officials said the power situation is expected to improve in the next few days as coal from SCCL mines reach the different power stations.

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