|
Coal mining is considered world over as a hazardous profession. With constant stress upon safety, there has been a steady improvement in safety performance over the years. The number of fatal accidents in coal mines in the country has come down from 222 in 1975 to 90 in 2004. Fatalities have come down from 664 to 99 during the same period. In case of Coal India Limited (CIL), the fatality rate which was 2.62 per million tonne of coal production and 0.52 per three lakh man shifts in the year 1975 has been brought down to 0.22 and 0.20 respectively in the year 2004. Number of fatalities has come down from 105 in 2001 to 70 in 2004. In respect of Singareni Collieries Company Limited, fatalities have come down from 25 in 2001 to 14 in 2004. In the current year, 54 persons have been killed in accidents till the end of July in respect of CIL and 9 case of Singareni.
Safety has been integrated into process of coal mining and plants have institutional arrangement to keep vigil and monitor all aspects of safety in coal mines at various levels. Participation of workers' representatives is ensured at all levels of safety monitoring. The Government is promoting a number of other initiatives to promote safety awareness. These are : Conference on Safety in mines, Workers' participation in safety management, tripartite and bipartite reviews at various levels, training of work force, observance of safety weeks and safety campaigns and National Safety Awards.
To reduce accidents in underground mines, modern technologies are being adopted. These include providing scientific roof support systems, increased use of roof bolting and roof stitching methods, introduction of modern mechanized drilling machines, mechanization of loading operations through introduction of side discharge loaders, load haul dumpers to reduce exposure of workers to mining hazards and introduction of highly capital intensive computerized continuous mine environmental tele-monitoring system.
DS/SCH
|
