It is remarkable that not even a single day was lost during the month due to strikes and lock-outs, which is contrary to the experience with the state-owned coal mine company. "This is a record of sort in the last 14 years period," said the company officials.

This sudden change in the workers thinking prompted the management to swing into action and set up area-wise committees with workers to improve the quality of the coal.

While the total production target for August, 2000 is 20,04,100 tonnes, all the 12 live-mines put-together it produced about 20,17,600 tonnes. With a little effort from the management side, the month passed off peacefully with-out a single day strike. Apart from supplying coal to the cement and steel industry in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, SCCL also fulfils the requirements of the thermal power generation units in the state.

As per the production target fixed for the current year, it is decided to produce 31.67 million tonnes. For the first five month SCCL has produced 1.11 crore tonnes, against the targeted 1.16 crore tonnes.

During the last year, though the management had announced that August, September and October shall be considered as the full-production months and even announced certain incentives for higher production, the workers then did not heed to the requests of the management.