New Delhi, March 13 (IANS): Coal India officers Thursday went on a three-day strike in protest against non-fulfilment of their demands, that include performance-related pay and a new pension scheme.

"The strike is a historic success as the Coal India management and coal ministry has been neglecting officers demands for performance-related pay and a new pension scheme. We had earlier also served notices of strike in 2010, 2011 and 2013 but nothing happened and we are forced to take this extreme step." said P.K. Singh, secretary general of the Coal Mines Officers' Association of India (CMOAI), which has called the strike.

Of the CIL's 350,000 employees, 19,000 are of officer rank.

The officers want payment of performance-related pay pending since 2007, immediate refund of recovered performance-linked pay advance from retired executives, implementation of a new pension scheme at once and removal of pay anomalies of different grades, among other demands.

A two-day strike by trade unions in February 2013 had led to a production loss for CIL of less than one million tonnes.