Kothagudem: VKCM coal production halted for third day as contract workers continue strike

Kothagudem: Alleged stubborn attitude of a contracting agency, Shodha Constructions Private Limited (SCPL) towards the demands of the workers it engaged to extract overburden and coal at SCCL’s VKCM opencast mine is affecting the SCCL’s production objectives.

Production activities at Venkateshkhani coal mine (VKCM) have been halted for the third day on Thursday as the contract workers hired by the company are one strike under the banner of VK Coal Mine Contract Workers JAC over payment of annual bonus to them.

This is happening even as the SCCL CMD Dr. Buddhaprakash Jyoti stressed on supplying 75,000 tonnes of coal per day to the thermal power stations of Telangana Genco in anticipation of increased electricity demand in the coming days due to the impact of El Niño,

It is said that Shodha Constructions, which secured a contract to extract overburden and coal, started production after getting a work permit in November, 2025. It is supposed to remove around 40, 000 cubic metres of overburden (OB) and around 4000 to 6000 metric tonnes of coal after removing OB. The contracting agency hired around 550 private workers for the purpose.

The workers said that they demanded an annual bonus of 20 percent but the company paid only 8.33 percent even as the other contracting agencies working for the SCCL paid around 18 percent bonus.

Several rounds of talks with Shodha Constructions and SCCL officials over the past few days failed leading to the strike. Meanwhile, the contracting agency terminated four workers Jetti Mohan Rao of INTUC, N Rakesh of IFTU, P Srikanth of DWUS and Marshal Sreenu of AITUC from services. The workers argued that terminating striking workers is against labour laws.

On the other hand, the contracting agency reportedly closed a mess set up at the VKCM camp area and told the workers staying at the camp that they would not be served food from Thursday onwards putting pressure on the workers.

In the wake of all these developments the SCCL officials are said to be helpless and their intervention remained ineffective. The reason according to the workers is that Shodha Constructions is being run by relatives of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy.

One of its directors Soodini Deethi Reddy happens to be the wife of S Srujan Reddy, who is said to be the brother-in-law of the Chief Minister. Hence the SCCL officials are unable to address the issue even if they wanted to do so. Shodha management reportedly told the SCCL officials not to be involved in the matter when the latter asked the contracting agency to resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, the JAC leaders who staged a dharna at the VKCM submitted a memorandum with 13 demands to SCCL GM and Shodha Constructions officials on Thursday evening for the strict implementation of labour laws in the work area. They wanted to reinstate all the four terminated workers besides several other demands.

The SCCL officials when contacted stated that they have coal reserves, extracted prior to strike, to meet their needs at present. The leaders of BRS extended support to the striking workers.