After taking revolutionary steps like e-auction to bring in transparency in the allocation of coal blocks, nation's coal giant Coal India (CIL) has decided to set up four committees to consider promotions at different levels and link promotions with performance as is the practice in private establishments. The company is corporate India's largest employer, and follows seniority-based approach in vertical movement of its staff.

According news reports, the coal behemoth is going the private sector way to hold on to its top talent even as the government is in the process of opening up commercial coal mining to the private industry, thus effectively ending CIL's monopoly. This may lead to exodus of experienced hands. The company will manage career programme of executives through departmental promotion committees.

The promotion committees, comprising senior directors, will promote meritocracy. One of the four committees will consider promotions of top-level executives of level 8 and 9, while the second panel will be in charge of the senior management people of executive level 7 and 8. Both these panels will comprise the director personal and industrial relations of CIL, a functional director, one chairman and managing director of a subsidiary and two independent directors. The third committee -comprising CIL human resource director and two functional directors from subsidiaries -will consider promotions of E6 to E7, or the middle management.

Under the proposed guideline for promotion, ratings from performance management system will be the most important deciding factor, followed by seniority that would determine eligibility for promotions.

The company has decided to make March 31 every year the cutoff date for deciding eligibility.Cut-off date for cluster promotions from E2 and E3 candidates will be March 31 and September 30 every year, following which vacancies for each grade will be assessed on April 1 every year by the committee, officials said.

Coal prices drop

European physical coal prices spent most of the first two weeks of July in decline as demand ebbed, and imports by major Asian buyers also slowed in line with economic growth in the region.

In Europe, August physical cargoes into Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Antwerp (ARA) were last settled at $58.10 per tonne, down almost $2 since the beginning of July.

In the Asia/Pacific region, Australian August cargoes from the Newcastle terminal were priced at $60.70 a tonne, almost unchanged since the beginning of the month, supported by a short-term pick-up in Chinese imports due to high summer demand.

But the overall outlook for the region remained for low prices.

Although China's June coal imports rose 16.5 percent on the month in June, supported by peak summer demand, they were still down 34 percent on the year as its economy grows at its lowest rate since the 2008/09 global financial crisis and the government introduces new environmental laws to combat rampant pollution.

In South Korea, coal imports fell 2.5 percent in June from a year earlier, customs data showed on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley said that judging by developments in Indonesia, the world's biggest thermal coal exporter, prices could drop further still. "India and China are reducing their imports, turning increasingly to their abundant domestic coal resources," the bank said. With China's and India's coal imports ebbing, Morgan Stanley said that Indonesian miners might turn to other buyers.