India's largest coal handling agency - Mjunction

Expert Speak
and in a hard copy format as well. It will certainly be
better if we invest money on modern survey instruments,
computers, printers and other requisite software, as and
when needed.
4. There are many other ways to check over-reporting,namely
the consumption of diesel. It is known that more production
leads to more diesel consumption. Therefore, a sudden
spurt in production without proportionate increase in
diesel consumption pattern surely means over-reporting.
Again, use of modern software like PLANTCARE or
many others available off the shelf, which will not only
provide diesel consumption details, but also give other
useful figures such as spares consumed and availability
and utilisation of HEMM, will also prove useful in this
direction.
Permanent remedy
As a permanent remedy, coal companies can provide a few
modern survey instruments, along with necessary software
and computerised large printers (the cost of each will be
around `10 lakhs) to every opencast project.
One can also ask the colliery manager/surveyor to send
the plans and sections every month to the chief of survey of
the coal company involved, by email.
The chief of Survey at the headquarters, on the other
hand, shall provide the management with the calculated coal
extracted which can then be reconciled with the dispatch and
after deduction of dispatch, tentative stock can be calculated
then and there itself at the headquarters.
Change the work culture
If, however, the problem of over-reporting is to be weeded
out completely, the companies should opt for a sea-change in
their work cultures itself. This will involve major changes in
the performance evaluation of executives concerned based on
the dispatch of coal and not on production, and secondly, the
availability and utilisation of equipment, and not production
figures,
Instead of daily monitoring of production, daily monitoring
of dispatch and availability and utilisation of HEMM should
be carried out by the GM/CGM of the coal concerns. They
can also utilise quarterly video photographs provided by area
office/sub-area office authorities, with regard to the condition
of haul-roads and their maintenance.
In fact, all these points, if properly looked into, will
ultimately create a situation where there will be no need for
over–reporting, as the production will go up automatically.
The writer is former CGM of Coal India Ltd, former COO of Aditya Birla Group
and is present Managing Director of Priya Mining Consultancy and Services
Pvt Ltd
COAL INSIGHTS 59 October 2010