National Institution for Transforming India or NITI Aayog was formed by the Narendra Modi government. This Aayog is the policy think-tank which replaced the planning commission followed by the top-down model. After suggesting Air India to go private, the Aayog has indicated that India should split the Coal India into seven independent companies to make it more competitive. The committee also wants that the fresh coal production should come from private sector mines.
Coal is used to generate 70% of India’s power. India is the world’s third largest producer and also the third-biggest importer of coal. With the splitting of the coal business, the government wants to change these statistics by boosting local coal production.
The announcement made by NITI Aayog, to break the world’s biggest coal miner could be resisted by the powerful unions which consist of 3,50,000 employees. The same proposal was raised before in 2014, but government backed down in the face of union protests.
One of the unions, which is close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, is against the move and says it has the support of about half of Coal India’s workers. While Baij Nath Rai, president of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh said, “We are opposing the recommendations made by NITI Aayog “.
Coal India, the country’s second-biggest employer, is often criticized for being bloated and inefficient. Its output-per-man shift is estimated at one-eighth of Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private coal producer.