The Telangana government on October 13 announced a Dasara bonus of ₹1,53,912 for each of the 38,737 permanent employees of Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) and ₹5,500 each for 29,717 contract workers.
Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, who holds the state’s energy portfolio, made the announcement at a press conference at Praja Bhavan in Hyderabad. The bonus represents 34% of SCCL’s post-tax profit of ₹1,754 crore, which translates into a total bonus pool of about ₹596 crore. The per-employee amount is down from ₹1,95,610 last year, when the state-owned coal miner distributed ₹819 crore following a sharper profit year.
Bhatti said the bonus was “part of a series of welfare measures aimed at improving the lives and working conditions of Singareni employees and contract workers.” The Deputy Chief Minister was flanked by IT and Industries Minister D Sridhar Babu and SCCL Chairman and Managing Director Buddha Prakash Jyothi at the briefing.
Alongside the cash payout, Bhatti announced that SCCL will pay its workers’ income tax on their behalf, release pending performance-related pay for officers and distribute safety kits to workers every six months. The company already provides a ₹1.2 crore accident cover for its permanent workforce and a free ₹40 lakh accident insurance scheme covering around 30,000 contract workers, the Deputy Chief Minister told reporters.
The announcement follows a batch of welfare measures approved in the same meeting, including clearance of 250 to 300 pending compassionate appointment orders within 15 days, free cancer screening across villages in SCCL areas, and a government-run thermal power plant at Ramagundam that has been cleared under Singareni’s management.
Singareni, which employs over 40,000 permanent workers across Telangana’s coal belt, is one of India’s largest state-owned coal producers and a politically sensitive employer in the state. State-owned enterprises in India routinely tie Dasara and Diwali bonuses to a share of profits, and the SCCL announcement is likely to feed into wage-and-benefit benchmarking across the public sector mining and energy segment.
