'DNA' investigations: Every 24 hours a coal miner dies in India, but who cares

This is the final report of a five-part series.

Gangabala lost her husband in a coal-mining accident in the Central Sonda colliery, Jharkhand, five years ago.

The 45-year-old woman from Ramgarh district is still to recover from the shock. But Gangabala is not alone. Ever since the government of India nationalised coal industries in 1974, miners have been dying.

More than 370 miners were killed in 1975 when a routine explosion led to the roof giving away inside the Chasnala colliery near Dhanbad, Jharkhand. The deaths were soon forgotten, but the incident set the cash registers ringing at the box office when Bollywood came up with the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Kaala Patthar based on the disaster. DNA correspondents found, however, that even today, on average, one family loses its breadwinner every 24 hours.

The main reason for such deaths is companies not using safety funds. Coal India Limited (CIL) and its eight subsidiaries, Neyveli Lignite Corporation, Singareni Collieries Corporation Limited, captive block miners, and village-level miners (who have traditionally been involved in mining and are now considered illegal miners) mine coal in the country. Almost 30% of the funds allotted by CIL for safety (which add up to Rs693 crore over the past three years) has remained unused, the standing committee on safety in coal mines said in its report. DNA has a copy of the report.

Officials from the directorate general for mines safety (DGMS) rarely carry out safety inspections, GK Srivastava, a member of the CIL safety board, said.

Also, responsibilities are not clearly defined and miners are not properly trained, compounding the problem of lack of safety, he said.

DNA could not get any comment from Satish Puri, DGMS commissioner, on the matter though correspondents visited his office, sent e-mails and called him several times on telephone.
DNA has a copy of the Union labour ministry’s report on deaths since 1980. The list suggests that 160 miners die every year on average. These “statistical deaths” happen in coal-mining accidents. Then there are “non-statistical deaths” (never recorded officially). At least 60 miners die inside the mines annually, but their names will not be found on any of the official lists.

“Seven to 10 people die in every subsidiary every year because of heart attacks or strokes,” SQ Jama, MLC in Maharashtra and a prominent coal industry union leader, said.

A senior official of Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL) confirmed this. “Such deaths do happen because hospitals at collieries do not conduct proper pre-medical examination (PME) of workers,” he said.

DNA has documents to prove that some miners of WCL are unfit to work underground, but doctors have failed to recognise this. Also, DNA has anecdotal evidence which suggests that contractors engaged by CIL and other mining companies do not report deaths that cannot be attributed to accidents.

When DNA correspondents visited the Umrer mine near Nagpur, an official said two contract workers died on duty in August 2009. But the contractor manipulated the information to say they died in a road accident. Such cases abound in every subsidiary of CIL.

And what about the “illegal miners”, the villagers? There is no data on the casualties. Experts say the number of deaths might run into several hundreds. A senior police officer in Ranchi said a conservative estimate would be nothing less than 150 deaths annually in Jharkhand alone. DNA visited Golakd, Kujama, Surunga basti, and Logpeet villages in Dhanbad district, Jharkhand, to find that several illegal miners from these villages had died. Surendar Paswan, a social activist from Dhanbad, said five to six people from each village perish every year.

The apathy of the coal companies as well as the government has left hundreds of families in the lurch as they have lost their breadwinners in mining accidents. It is no wonder that Gangabala is now engaged in the same dangerous occupation that claimed her husband’s life.