The Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) will review applications from former employees dismissed for unauthorised absence between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2025, creating a formal route for eligible workers to be considered for reappointment.
The company’s industrial relations wing issued a circular on October 31 inviting applications from ex-employees willing to have their cases examined. The review will be conducted under a memorandum of settlement signed on August 27, according to the circular.
A high-power committee headed by SCCL’s director for personnel, administration and welfare will examine the cases of eligible employees. The process will begin with scrutiny at the area level before applications are placed before the higher committee.
Area general managers have been instructed to have the applications examined by an area-level committee. The panel will include the staff officer to the general manager, the area personnel head and the area industrial engineering department head.
The exercise concerns workers who were dismissed during a three-year period for unauthorised absenteeism. The circular does not establish that all applicants will be reappointed; their cases will first be assessed through the committee process.
The decision follows repeated concerns over absenteeism in Singareni’s mines. Company sources cited in the report have previously acknowledged that chronic absenteeism affected production in several areas. The review therefore links an employment-relief process with the company’s operational concerns around workforce availability.
The move is also understood to have followed requests from public representatives in the coal belt region to Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka. They sought an opportunity for dismissed workers to be considered for reappointment.
SCCL’s mines and workforce are central to the economic activity of Telangana’s coal belt, making employment decisions within the company significant beyond individual service cases. At the same time, the company’s stated concerns over absenteeism underline the administrative challenge of maintaining consistent staffing in mining operations.
The circular sets out the institutional mechanism for the review but, in the information available, does not specify the number of dismissed employees who may apply, the application deadline, or the timeline for the high-power committee to complete its assessment. The next step is the submission and area-level scrutiny of applications before eligible cases are considered by the committee headed by SCCL’s personnel director.
