The Telangana government on Thursday announced a 28 per cent share in the profit of Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) to its employees for 2018-19.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao announced in the state legislative Assembly that each employee will get a bonus of Rs 1,00,899, which is Rs 40,530 more than the last year’s bonus.

He said that this is Telangana government’s Dussehra festival gift for the employees of SCCL.

The company, owned by the Telangana government and the Centre on a 51:49 equity basis, earned record net profit of Rs 1,765 crore during 2018-19.

In 2017-18, each worker was paid Rs 60,369 as part of the 27 per cent profits shared with the workers.

The company, which has a workforce of over 56,000, had clocked a net profit of Rs 1,212 crore in 2017-18.

He pointed out that the company, which had produced 50.47 million tonnes of coal in 2013-14, had been increasing production every year. In 2018-19, the coal production went up to a record level of 64.41 million tonnes. The net profit grew from Rs 418 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,765 crore in 2018-19.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, said the public sector undertaking is playing a key role in the development of Telangana.

“Progress in coal production, transport, sales, profits, increase in turnover, all stand as a symbol of the Telangana government’s effective and good governance. It is a proud moment for all of us, when the SCCL fared better than the Coal India in almost all parameters related to the coal management in the country,” the Chief Minister said.

“Our government feels that the sweat that each and every SCCL worker shed in creating the national wealth, often coming out of jaws of death, is no way inferior to the sacrifices of our own army personnel fighting at the borders,” he added.

He recalled that in the united Andhra Pradesh, Singareni workers were getting meagre bonus. The bonus was only Rs 13,540 in 2013-14.