News

Coal India ropes in IIT to plan manpower profile

Kolkata: Coal India Ltd (CIL) has engaged the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) to prepare a comprehensive manpower profile plan for itself. The world’s largest coal company employs 2.8 lakh persons including executives.

“With the advancement of technology, the profile of manpower required to run the company has changed over time. While advanced machinery is being employed in mines, we are using advanced technology at Coal India headquarters to run daily businesses. This requires a fresh set of manpower profiling that IIT will prepare for us and submit in about six months,” said a senior Coal India executive.

He said 12,000 employees retire every year from the company set up over 40 years ago, while it barely recruited 1,100 last year. The company feels it needs to profile its manpower skills in the changed environment where new age equipment enables an employee to undertake jobs that earlier required more hands.

“This realisation has prompted us to undertake the service of the top organisation last month that would tell us what kind of skill set should we look at for various positions,” the executive said.

Coal India used to employ close to 6.8 lakh employees in the mid-eighties and produced hardly 100 million tonnes of coal. The number of employees has reduced to less than half over the years and it now produces nearly six times more. This has increased per person productivity by several notches.

“Lesser number of employees can produce more with advanced machinery and equipment. This is exactly why we need a fresh profiling,” the Coal India executive said.