News Detail

Champa Yadav (name changed) was given a job at Coal India on compassionate grounds after her husband died in a mining accident some 12-years ago. As she was uneducated, she was absorbed as a general labourer in a CIL colliery far away from her home.

A rule in Coal India requires a family member to be offered employment in case an employee dies in an accident or is rendered unfit for work. Now 51, Champa finds the job taxing on her health. For ten years now, her only son Sonu, has been accompanying her to work and helping her in her daily tasks. Champa does not have the luxury to stop working because her job pays her between INR 20,000 – INR 29,000 per month. But Sonu and Champa have entered into an unwritten agreement with the manager that Sonu will do the actual physical work, while Champa will just be present. However what Champa really wants is to opt out and let Sonu be absorbed by CIL in her place.

This has been done before. Prior to 2002, every five years, CIL used to absorb the sons of women employees after they turned adult.

But, the management stopped the practice as Coal India was overstaffed and there has been no such recruitment in the last 12 years. This is not just the story of Champa and her son Sonu. There are some 26,000-odd women who make up 7 Percent of Coal India's 3.57 lakh strong workforce. A large chunk of these women have been appointed on compassionate grounds and are asking their sons be absorbed by CIL in their place.

"With age, we are losing our ability to continue with the physical work. In a large number of cases, the mothers are accompanied by their sons to the workplace," said Namita Bhowmick, a general labourer at Amrapatra Colliery 4 in Jharkhand.

While this helps the women retain their jobs, it stops sons from exploring employment opportunities. "Sons are not able to do an independent job and add to the family income," said Nirmala Rai, another employee.

A recently announced voluntary retirement scheme by the CIL management was, in fact, the result of an effort which took at least 8-9 years to materialize. The VRS (Female) Sangathan, a loose group of women and sons like Namita and Subhendu , approached almost all the officials of Coal India including the unions to take up their case.

The Indian National Mine Workers' Federation then took up the issue and convinced the management to declare a VRS scheme. "We have been in talks with the management for years and it is only last week that the scheme was announced after it was passed by the board a couple of weeks ago," said SQ Zama, secretary general of the federation.

In fact, during the time the government was planning to divest an additional stake in the company, the workmen threatened to go on strike and the female VRS scheme was included in the list of demands to which the management agreed.

Source-On Request