Mines not utilising security funds

The rising rate of fatalities in underground coal mines over the last two years can be attributed to the serious under-utilisation of safety and security budgets.

Coal India Ltd, of which Bharat Coking Coal is a subsidiary, utilised less than half of its safety and security budget in the last two years, officials said. This, despite the safety budget outlay, at Rs 590 crore this fiscal, being seen as inadequate.

The coal industry is tightly controlled by the government through two umbrella companies -- the larger Coal India Ltd, which produces about 340 million tonnes of coal annually, and Singareni Collieries, which produces about 36 million tonnes. A bulk of the latter's mines are underground.

Using the money available for increasing mechanised mining can not only prevent fatal accidents, but also lead to a rise in productivity, and that is what Singareni Collieries has done.

To improve safety and productivity and reduce the physical drudgery for workmen, Singareni has adopted mechanisation, with only 16 of its 47 underground mines seeing conventional hand-section mining.

It also introduced at a cost of Rs 70 crore a continuous mining machine at one of its underground mines last month. Now, no miners are required in this mine. The machine will cut and load coal, besides bolting the roof through a simultaneous remote operation.

While coal mining is a hazardous profession the world over, with reports of fatalities not too rare "" 10 people died due to the collapse of a coal mine shaft in China yesterday "" technology can be used to minimise if not eliminate such cases.

And there is an economic rationale in investing in safety technology.

As Coal Minister Shibu Soren said at a meeting of the Standing Committee on safety in mines, "Unless our mines and miners remain totally safe, it is difficult to reach our goal of increasing production."

The production of coal has not kept pace with demand. Thus, despite sitting on proven reserves of 95 billion tonnes of coal, the country has seen a trend of rising coal imports to feed, among others, the power sector.