Singareni Collieries: From Gloom

To
Glory
Presented by:
Group 11

Singareni Collieries History &

Concerns

Traces its origins back to 1870 huge coal deposits were discovered
in the Godavari Valley area of Andhra Pradesh.
By 1997 it had 10,435 million tonnes of coal reserves including 12
open cast and 55 underground and an enormous workforce of
114,486 employees.
Owned by Govt. Of Andhra Pradesh and Govt. of India in 51:49.
Post Liberalisation ( after 1991) saw companies importing coal
from Australia, Indonesia etc. coal prices became unprofitable for
SCCL and by 1992 it was declared bankrupt to BIFR.
In spite of a bailout package from the govt. SCCL faced concerns
like poor industrial relations, wildcat strikes, trade unions,
absenteeism, low productivity.
As a result, it was again declared bankrupt again in 1996-97 and
the losses had accumulated to INR 12.19 billion.

Dawn of a New Era Rise of SCCL

APVN Sarma took the reins in in 1997 and realised that there was
virtually communication between the company and its employees
and decided to bridge this gap.
Handpicked his top management team and defining distinct and
clear roles between each one of them.
Bridging the trust deficit between the employees and the
organisation.
Improving Organisational Communication
SCCL came up with vision promote the spirit of Singarenism among
Singarenians.
Sending letters to all the employees stating the ill health and dark future of
the company.
Field trips of Area General Managers to understand the concerns faced by
the employees and another within a fortnight to check if the concerns were
resolved.
Employee Achievements were broadcasted via press releases, television
channels etc.

Formation of Multi Department Teams

Objective was to convey the top managements, inform employees about

Dawn of a New Era Rise of SCCL

Enhancing Employee Motivation

Employee Incentive Scheme to measure and reward individual performance.

In addition to the annual bonus, employees received an incentive based on
individual performance including the Best Worker Award.
In addition, SCCL re-started sending mid level executives to foreign
countries for training.

Promoting Industrial Peace

Sarma decided to regulate unions by holding unions elections to deal with

the lack of discipline and the absenteeism issues.
This dealt with the inter union rivalry and made communication between the
company and the unions more disciplines.
As a result SCCL observed its first strike free calendar month in 18 years
during August 2000.

Rationalisation of Manpower

To curb the increasing manpower and low productivity SCCL changed its
policy to granting jobs to dependants of employees against a vacancy only.
Centralised recruitment and transfers to ensure transparency.
Introduced pension an VRS Schemes.

The Magnificence of Establishing Trust and

Communication
Under the leadership and beliefs of Sarma, SCCL posted
profits for 4 straight years with net profit rising to INR 894
Million in 2001.
The accumulated loss had declined by a whooping 53.6 per
cent from INR 12.19 billion in 1996-97 to INR 5.65 billion in
2001.
SCCL saw a steep rise in productivity and an equal decrease
in absenteeism and other menaces that haunted SCCL in
the 90s.

Thank
You!