New Delhi: The Centre has constituted a high-level national committee for safety in coal mines which will review one coal company, both public and private, every two months and ensure that suitable policy interventions are made and monitoring safety standards are followed in coal mines to achieve the aim of zero fatality – zero harm, a document accessed by PSU Watch showed. The committee is headed by PK Sarkar, former Director-General of Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS) and consists of a Member Secretary and five other Members, the document dated January 1 showed.
"The objective of constitution of a National Level Committee for Safety in Coal mines is mainly to ensure that suitable policy interventions at ministry level and monitoring standards of safety in the coal mines being operated by Central and State PSUs, Power Generation Companies or Joint Ventures and Private Coal mines for captive and non-captive use or for commercial mining to make our mine safer, with comparable Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) standards at international level and to ensure OHS risk from mining operations in all such mines in the country are "at an acceptable level" and "As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA)", keeping the overall goal of Zero Fatality – Zero Harm," the document said.
The Director Technical at the Ministry of Coal, Peeyush Kumar, is the Member Secretary of the committee. And the other five Members on the panel are former Northern Coalfields Ltd (NCL) CMD Tapas Kumar Nag, Head of Department (HoD) at IIT-ISM-Dhanbad Professor Ram Madhav, former DDG (Electrical) at DGMS GL Kanta Rao, former Director of CMPDI RK Chopra, and Dattatraya Sate, former HoD at Department of Vehicle Testing and Certification (Safety and Regulations), Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT) and former Technical Consultant, Ministry of Road and Highways. The tenure of the Members will be for a period of two years.
The high-level committee will be responsible for giving advice and making recommendations about promoting and protecting the safety and health of people at coal mines and those who may be affected by coal mining operations. They will also be responsible for identifying and prioritising critical risks to the safety and health of people at coal mines, reviewing the effectiveness of the Act, rules, regulations, and recognised standards, developing a five-year strategic plan for improving the safety and health of people at coal mines, studying and analysing the possible of implementation of global best mining practices and conducting internal reviews, follow-ups and evaluation of the effectiveness of programmes carried out by coal companies with regard to safety, health and training.
The panel will act as the interface between the Ministry of Coal and DGMS. It will meet once in two months and will review the safety status of one coal company in each meeting. It will also submit a report every two months for consideration to the ministry.
The news comes just days ahead of a meeting of the Standing Committee on Safety in Coal Mines scheduled to take place on January 5. According to data sourced from the Ministry of Coal, a total of 23 people, including regular and contractual employees of Coal India Ltd (CIL) and its subsidiaries, and 11 people at Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) lost their lives between February 12, 2020 and January 2, 2021 due to accidents in coal mines.
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