Facilities to Coal Mine Workers

New Delhi: The following facilities are provided to the mine employees for ensuring safety:

1. Housing, drinking water and sanitation including medical facilities to employees in mines of CIL.
2. Personnel Protective Equipment (PPE) to all employees as per their job requirements.
3. Ensuring the health of the employees of mines of CIL by way of Initial and Periodic Medical examination as per statute and National Safety Conference recommendations and medical facilities for occupational health services.
4. Adequate training facilities for Initial and Refresher training & On-the-Job Training as per statute.

5. Facility of Man Riding System for those UG mines having arduous and long travel.

6. Round-the-clock Supervision by statutory personnel for ensuring safety of the employees working in the mines.
7. Well-equipped Organization for Mine Rescue Services for dealing with Emergency situations.

The operations in Coal Mines are regulated by the Mines Act-1952 and rules, regulations and bye-laws framed thereunder and other important statutes related to use of electricity and explosive etc. These statutes are administered by the Directorate-General of Mines Safety (DGMS). DGMS ensures that the all the mines are operated as per statutes and any violations of safety statutes or guidelines are pointed out by them during their inspections.

CIL undertakes the following for achieving Zero Accident in all its mines:

1. Safety Policy already formulated and implemented in all mines of CIL for ensuring mine safety.
2. Provision for adequate nos. of competent man power and fund for maintenance of mine safety.
3. Preparation and implementation of Risk assessment based Safety Management Plans (SMPs) for all mines of CIL.
4. Preparation and implementation of Risk assessment based site specific Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for various mining and allied operations.
5. Identification of principal hazards, preparation and implementation of “Principal Hazard Management Plan (PHMP)” thereof.
6. Preparation and implementation of “Triggered Action Response Plan (TARP)” to deal with any emergency.
7. Conducting Safety Audit from time to time to assess status of safety in mines.
8. Adoption of Mass Production Technology in more number of amenable UG mines.
9. Phasing out manual loading in UG mines.
10. Adoption of the state-of-the art mechanism for Strata Management such as scientifically determined Rock Mass Rating (RMR) based Support System, Strata Control Cell, mechanized Drilling for Roof Bolting, use of Resin capsules in place of Cement capsules and modern Strata Monitoring Instruments.
11. Mine Air Sampling and Analysis by Gas Chromatograph.
12. Commissioning of Environmental Tele Monitoring System in Degree- III & fiery UG mines.
13. Eco-friendly Surface Miners for blast free mining and avoidance of associated risks.
14. Dumpers fitted with Proximity Warning Devices, Rear view mirrors and camera, Audio-Visual Alarm (AVA), Automatic Fire Detection & Suppression system etc.
15. GPS based Operator Independent Truck Dispatch System (OITDS) in large OCPs.
16. Training on Simulators for HEMM operators.
17. Commissioning of Virtual Reality Mine Station (VRMS) in collaboration with SIMTARS, Australia at IIT-ISM, Dhanbad.

Over and above imparting Initial and Refresher training to mine workers including the contractual ones as per the provisions of the Mine Vocational Training Rules 1966, the following additional steps are undertaken: –

1. Regular job specific safety training to mine workers & contractual workmen.
2. Imparting First-aid training to all front line supervisors & grass-root level employees.
3. Special safety drives on thrust areas such as, haulage & conveyors, mine ventilation, safe use of explosive & electricity, etc.
4. Special drives on safe dump management.
5. Sensitization programmes on safety management plan.
6. Regular sensitization of contractual workmen.
7. Imparting training on Simulators to Dumper / HEMM Operators.
8. Imparting Risk Management training and Root Cause Analysis to mine officials, PSC members and grass-root level workmen by the SIMTARS accredited trainers of CIL & subsidiaries.
9. Additionally, several mass safety awareness programmes in form of celebrating Mine Safety Week, All India Mines Rescue Competition, Inter-Area First-aid competition, mine safety workshop etc. are observed to promote safety among all stakeholders.

State-wise number of working coal mines across the country, State/UT-wise is given below:

The number of coal mine workers working in the subsidiaries of Coal India Limited (CIL) and The Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) located in different States as on 01.02.2018 are given as under:

This information was made available in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.