The Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) will review cases of employees dismissed for unauthorised absenteeism between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2025, giving eligible former workers an opportunity to seek reappointment. The company has invited applications from those willing to have their cases considered under a process overseen by a high-power committee.
The decision follows continuing concerns over absenteeism in Singareni mines. Company sources have previously acknowledged that chronic absenteeism has affected production in several areas. The latest review is also understood to have followed requests from public representatives in the coal belt region to Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, seeking an opportunity for dismissed workers to return.
An SCCL circular issued on October 31 by the industrial relations wing of the corporate personnel department said the exercise was being undertaken in accordance with a memorandum of settlement dated August 27. The settlement provides for the examination of eligible cases by a high-power committee headed by the director of personnel, administration and welfare.
The review will not be an automatic reinstatement of all workers covered by the period. Former employees must first submit applications to be considered, after which their cases will undergo scrutiny through the company’s prescribed committee structure. The available details do not specify how many workers may apply or how many cases could ultimately qualify for reappointment.
At the operational level, area general managers have been instructed to have the applications examined by an area-level committee. That panel will include the staff officer to the general manager, the area personnel head and the area industrial engineering department head. The multi-level process places the initial scrutiny with the concerned mining area before the cases move to the high-power committee.
The decision places labour administration alongside production management in the company’s response to absenteeism. SCCL’s earlier acknowledgement that chronic absence had affected output provides the operational context for the review, while the memorandum of settlement establishes the administrative basis for examining dismissals. The company has not, in the material available, announced a final number of reappointments or a completion date for the exercise.
For workers and families in Telangana’s coal belt, the process creates a formal route to seek reconsideration of dismissals made during the specified three-year period. For SCCL, the next stage will be the receipt and scrutiny of applications by the area-level committees, followed by consideration by the high-power committee headed by the director of personnel, administration and welfare.
