Workmen productivity at Coal India doubles in a decade

KOLKATA: Productivity of workmen at Coal India has doubled in the past ten years, afeat that has mostly gone unnoticed. The company now produces 50% more coal with two-thirds of the manpower 10 years ago, thanks to higher utilisation of machines.

According to the Coal Controller of India, output per shift — the quantum of coal each worker producer during a single shift — at the state-run company has increased from 8.6 tonnes for opencast mines in 2007-08 to 16.57 tonnes in 2017-18. During the same period, the company’s manpower reduced from 4.45 lakh to 3.1lakh. “Increased mechanisation at opencast mines including higher capacity equipment like dozers, dumpers and shovels has contributed enormously in increasing productivity of employees.

Coal India took a conscious decision to increase usage of equipment from 2011-12; since then productivity took a steep turn resulting in increased productivity per employee,” a senior Coal India executive said.


Some 10,000-15,000 employees have been retiring from the company every year, reducing its headcount by almost 1.3 lakh since 2007-08. This added to increased productivity, as Coal India now produces almost 193 million tonnes more than what it did 10 years ago. “Lower number of employees working with higher-capacity machines and equipment led to the steep rise in productivity the executive said.

Additionally, a number of mines were expanded and new mines were opened at an accelerated pace during the past decade, adding to increased productivity. Coal India is now aiming at producing 1billion tonnes of coal by 2022 by which time at least 20,000 more employees would superannuate. This is expected to increase productivity further.

Coal India’s average productivity per employee has increased to 1,787 tonnes a year from 821 tonnes. Nevertheless, output from underground mines, which employ a bulk of Coal India’s workmen, has increased only at a marginal pace, from 0.73 tonnes to 0.8 tonnes.

This is primarily because production from underground mines has remained flat during these years.

Most of Coal India’s underground mines are legacy mines, acquired during nationalisation of Coal India some four decades ago.

Production from most of these are costly compared with opencast mines.