Coal India on Wednesday said that it is hoping to conclude the eleventh version of National Coal Wage Agreement (NCWA-XI) within a month, benefitting 2.38 lakh non-executive manpower in the company.

The next round of talks is scheduled for May 19, the public sector miner said in a statement, which comes at time when the fourth quarter result of the company was affected by upfront wage cost provisions.

Coal India had made a provision of Rs 5870.16 crore during the fourth quarter towards wage revision, which resulted in a net profit of Rs 5527.62 crore compared to Rs 6715 crore in the second quarter of previous year. The miner said that excluding the provision on wage cost due to NCWA-XI, the fourth quarter profit after tax would have been around Rs 9920 crore, an all time high for any quarter till date.

“Of the total provision of Rs 8153 crore charged to profit and loss account on the account of wage revision during FY23, last quarter alone took up 72 per cent. Compared to the provisioning of Rs 475 crore made in Q4FY22, the expansion was 12.4 times,” Coal India statement said.

The miner further said that such a high provision was necessitated during the quarter because the company had inked a memorandum of understanding under the wage pact recommending a 19 per cent minimum guaranteed benefit after Q3FY23.