December 02, 2008

Dr Rao calls for ensuring full safety in coal mines in India

Indian government has recently advised coal miners that while augmenting coal production, the companies should adopt the concept of zero harm which would ensure implementation of good safety systems and practices for the coal miners will go a long way in protecting the interest of work persons in mines and increasing coal production and productivity. It said that for such an approach, periodical review of safety of miners is a must.

Dr Dasari Narayana Rao minister of state for coal while chairing the 30th meeting of the Standing Committee on Safety in Coal Mines recently called upon coal companies to adopt the concept of risk assessment and management of mines and putting efforts in making workings safe and advised the Directorate General of Mines Safety to evolve fresh guidelines within 3 months for risk assessment of all 560 mines of Coal India Limited.

Referring to the disturbing trend of rising accidents in opencast mines due to dumper movements, Dr Rao stressed that this should not be tolerated as the same is totally avoidable and asked managements of coal companies to devise appropriate traffic movement systems and totally avoid recurrence of such accidents.

It was also decided that replacement of manual drilling by mechanical drilling in underground coalmines should be done within one year. This will not only make mining safer but also improve efficiency in mining.

He further asked all coal companies both in private and public sector to ensure that the short fall in all categories of statutory personnel is filled up by December 2007 to improve safe operations in coal mining.

Presently there is a short fall of 2500 in executive category and 1600 in non executive category in CIL.