Telangana government trying to sell off SCCL surreptitiously, allege BMS leaders

ADILABAD: The Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) Trade Union BMS  president Yadagiri Sattaiaha on Friday demanded a halt to the privatisation drive. Speaking at a gate meeting at the Srirampur division of SCCL in Mancherial, he said the State government which has a 51 per cent share in SCCL, was resorting to privatisation of machinery, and security departments, civil departments, area hospitals, and several others. This was going on with a tacit understanding with Telangana Boggu Gani Karmika Sangam.

He said every worker should condemn the actions of the SCCL management, otherwise, there is a danger to the company’s survival, and the rights of the labourers would be under threat. He called upon the workers to participate in the programmes being organised by the BMS. They should understand that the survival of the company was at risk because the management was destroying the core activity by closing the underground mines and increasing opencast projects.

He said the government was contemplating handing over the company to the private sector on the pretext that it was difficult to extract quality coal from Tadicherla, and that whatever was being extracted now was substandard coal. BMS working president Peram Ramesh and others said that they would organise agitations in the mines and expose the privatisation process which was going on surreptitiously.