Following reports that wages were not paid on Wednesday as expected, Gujarat said it told its workers at the two mines that their weekly pay would be delayed and apologised about the inconvenience caused.

“It is anticipated that operations and cash flow would stabilise following the acceptance of the Jindal Steel and Power share offer at the general meeting scheduled for October 16,” Gujarat said.

“This meeting was originally planned for September but was postponed because of procedural issues.

“The company had experienced a delay in the necessary transfer of funds to support the pays that were usually scheduled for payment each Wednesday.”

Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia collieries staff division director Catherine Bolger told the Illawarra Mercury last week that its Gujarat members were also owed several months of superannuation payments plus a $A13,000 coal bonus from last year.

In a follow-up today, the newspaper reported that most workers went home without clocking on during Thursday and Friday but workers at Wongawilli completed shifts over the weekend.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union reportedly has 350 members across the two operations and had provided financial support in some cases, including buying insulin for a worker’s family member.

Last week Gujarat asked unions and workers to be understanding and to work with it to overcome “these hard times”.

“We hope to make the payments as soon as possible and to keep the delay to an absolute minimum,” Gujarat executive chairman Arun Jagatramka said.

“As we hear daily, Australia is experiencing a mining downturn – the drop in the coal price and a high Australian dollar all are major contributors.

“Gujarat NRE is also experiencing these difficult times but is working to maintain its workforce.”

Separately, Gujarat will reportedly find out whether it needs to pay more than $9 million to Singapore-based Coeclerici Asia today through its appeal case in the Federal Court.

The court previously sided with Coeclerici over the disputed matters relating to a coal order that was not delivered.

Jindal aims to buy $66 million worth of Gujarat shares at 20c each through the share offer.