Calcutta, Feb. 21: Coal India output may take a hit in March as some workers' unions are threatening to launch an agitation blocking despatch and the production process.

In a letter addressed to coal secretary Sushil Kumar, unions, affiliated to Congress's Intuc, have stated their intent to go for an agitation in Coal India and its subsidiaries.

The unions are protesting the coal ministry's decision to exclude their representatives from all statutory, non-statutory, bipartite and tripartite meetings of the public sector miner, including the Joint Bipartite Committee for Coal Industry (JBCCI) constituted for the revision of wages.

While Coal India sources said the move to keep the representatives of Intuc out of the JBCCI comes in the wake of a Delhi high court order, S.Q. Zama, secretary general of Intuc-affiliated Indian National Mineworkers' Federation, questioned the decision to bar union representatives from all committees.

"How did it suddenly become obligatory to debar INTUC representatives from all committees of Coal India and its subsidiaries?" asked Zama.

He claimed that a letter from a consultant to the coal ministry gave specific instruction to Coal India of "obligatory" exclusion.

"The unions will launch serious agitation, including blockade of coal dispatch and production process, from March 1, 2017, if the coal ministry instruction is not withdrawn," Zama said.

For Coal India, any disruption in the production process means the miner will drift further away from the annual production target of 598.61 million tonnes for 2016-17. In the first 10 months of the current fiscal, production was 44.82 million tonnes short of target.

To meet this fiscal's target, Coal India will have to produce 165 million tonnes in two months in a market marked by low growth in offtake.

Industry observers are pessimistic about Coal India achieving its target and predict the final shortfall in production to be around 40-50 million tonnes or more in case there are further external disruptions.

Various unions are also planning to meet soon to organise protests against any future decision by the Centre to divest another 10 per cent stake in Coal India.

A 10 per cent dilution will bring down the government's share in the PSU coal behemoth to 69 per cent from the present 79.78 per cent.