Coal India Limited (CIL) recorded 20 fatalities in the year 2022, observing a decline 31% than the previous year. The number of fatalities recorded in the State-owned miner in the year 2021 was 29.
“Demonstrating a downward trend, fatal accidents were also reduced by one-third to 18 in 2022. Comparatively, the same were 27 in 2021,” a press statement by CIL said.
According to the CIL, the fatality rate per million tonne (MT) of coal produced was 0.028 in 2022 decreasing sizeably by 40% against 0.047 of 2021. CIL produced 688 MTs during the calendar year of 2022 against 617 MTs in the preceding year.
Explaining the reason for the improvement in fatality rate the public service undertaking said that it undertook ‘Root Cause Analysis (RCA)‘ techniques, a process of exploring and analysing accidents that resulted in fatalities.
“The company has inked a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indian School of Mines (ISM) Dhanbad to train 100 executives to equip them with RCA techniques and solve the underlying safety hazards. Tool Box Safety Talk is yet another effective tool to assess safety-related hazards before beginning the mining operations and helps employees in awareness of safety issues,” the CIL said in a press statement.
Western Coalfields Limited, a subsidiary of CIL was ranked third in the mine rescue skills category in the International Mine Rescue Competition held in September 2022. The event was organised in the in Beaver, West Virginia, the U.S. by Mines Safety and Health Administration under the U.S. Department of Labour.
