CIL, Goldman and Shell in Race for Worst Company Laurel
Coal India (CIL), the world’s biggest coal producer, is rubbing shoulders with Goldman Sachs and Shell in the race for the top slot in the Public Eye Awards, for being the worst company in the world in dealing with the environment and human rights.
NGOs from around the world have nominated the first Indian company for the infamous awards since they were launched in 2000, ignoring the state-run firm’s view that it dutifully abides by environmental norms, runs the extra mile to rehabilitate displaced people and that its mine-safety record is not bad at all.
While Goldman Sachs is being blamed from its alleged role in the Greek economic crisis, Shell is on the hit list for drilling in the Arctic in the nominations for the awards organised by Berne Declaration and Greenpeace.
The awards, frequently reported in international media, have been given to mining and energy companies in the past. They are timed as a counterpoint to the Davos World Economic Forum which gets together corporate leaders from around the world in late January, said Ashish Fernandes, senior campaigner at Greenpeace. For state-run CIL, the nomination reads: “Coal India’s coal mines destroy the habitats of many large mammals and rob tribal peoples of their livelihood and homelands, forcing them into a life of bitter poverty. The dismal record with 205 workers dead and 699 seriously wounded in 2010 alone, suggests that working conditions at CIL are indeed disastrous. At least 239 coal mines belonging to CIL operate without environmental permit.” The company disagrees. “Yes, accidents occur in every mine, but our accident numbers are steadily declining due to adoption of series of safety norms of world class standards. There is a committee for safety in mines which takes stock of safety issues and gives us suggestive measures which we implement at our mines on a regular basis. The numbers of death and accident being quoted by the organisation are way off the mark. There have been 92 fatalities in 2010 while injuries were 308. This has almost halved in 2011,” a Coal India official said.
Organisers of the awards say many NGOs had a different opinion of the company. “The Public Eye Awards are a platform for NGOs from around the world to nominate corporations which do not respect human rights and the environment. The Awards depend on the nominations we get from non-government organisations,” said Yves Zenger of Green Peace. Fernandes said CIL was nominated by a German-based NGO Urgewald. “The company sacrifices everything for profit,” he added.
CIL has also been accused of turning the Jharia region in Jharkhand, originally a dense forest belt and home to various tribes, into wasteland through improper mining. “Spontaneous fire in Jharia releases toxic gases and threatens the area that is home to more than 4 lakh people. The entire village had to be relocated because of the fire. Agriculture is nearly impossible, and a life of abject poverty is often the consequence. As the rest of India’s coal reserves are in the forest land, expansion plans will threaten endangered species such as tigers and elephants and will deprive the tribal people of Central India of their livelihoods,” the NGO said.
Coal India defends its record. “CIL also takes up afforestation programmes, in fact, some part of afforested land has recently been declared a no-go area by the government. For rehabilitation, we go by the laid norms and provide employment to one member of the family as well as a reasonable amount of lump-sum cash. The rehabilitation programme has been recently revised upwards and made better than most of the schemes offered by any other Indian public sector companies,” the senior CIL official said. “Additionally we train the land losers so that they can be employed productively at CIL mines and the rest of them become self reliant. In fact, we improve lives of people in places where we start a project,” the official said. While it has turned out to be darling of investors with SPA Research, IIFL, Angel Broking and R K Global recently advising investors to buy CIL, the company has faced a lot of criticism. UK-based The Children’s Fund, which holds about 1% in the company, has been putting pressure on the board to increase prices and sell more coal. CIL has also come under the CCI glare, asking it to explain why has it been increasing prices although its production have not risen in tandem.
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