Streamline the Unsafe Mines in Jharkhand
16 mine workers lost their lives on 1st February, 2022, on a single day, in different unsafe coal mining areas like Gopinathpur, Kapasara and Dahibari in Jharkhand. 10 workers died in Gopinathpur, 3 in Kapasara and 3 in Dahibari. The relatives of the deceased workers feel threatened to identify the dead workers as that may lead to getting framed under false charges by the police.
Other than those deceased, several workers were also grievously injured in the mine accidents. A team led by ex MLA of the MCC (Marxist Coordination Committee), Comrade Arup Chatterjee, plunged into the task of rescuing bodies of workers from the debris. A team of CPI(ML) -AICCTU, led by Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya, visited the site of accident at Gopinathpur on 3rd February.
Comrade Dipankar said that calling such mining operations as “illegal” only helps the police and administration to terrorise the people, workers and their families involved. It is not justified to call them illegal but for calling them as “Unsafe Mines”. No one else but the central and state governments are responsible for this. The “Unsafe” mining is going on unabated in connivance with the nexus of police, coal mine administrations and politicians and thus making it no more “illegal”.
As it is happening unabated, year-long and in such a large scale and for decades together, it is better to regularise such unsafe mines and the union government should be held responsible for such unsafe mines and their operations. It is better to streamline such parallel mining operations so as to streamline them and to provide safety and security to the workforce involved. Bringing such mining operations under Coal India can help in streamlining the sector. He also said that the union government should be held responsible for all mining accidents, disasters and other issues in whatever category the mines belong to.
The unsafe coal mining in India produces a sizeable quantity of coal, with some estimates putting it at 25 percent, at least, of total coal production in the country. Jharkhand is the biggest centre of such illegal coal mining where several thousands of poor and unemployed people are compelled to toil in hazardous work conditions. This is a business totally controlled by the coal mafia in collusion with the governments and administration without even any semblance of safety measures. Thus, accidents are very regular that killed scores of workers and most of the deaths go unreported and covered up by the administration.
The Coal Mine Workers Union (CMWU), affiliated to AICCTU, has been demanding for long that the such unsafe mining in Jharkhand shall be streamlined. Such mines shall be run by co-operative societies of workers so that the grip of the coal mafia is loosened. The demand was also that the Coal India must ensure buying the coal produced by such co-operatives run by workers. The AICCTU has been consistently demanding an end to the raj of the mining mafia. Despite several demonstrations by the AICCTU, the dominance of coal mafia continued and workers continued to die and suffer. The Government of Jharkhand and Coal India must intervene immediately to end the Coal Mafia Raj and guarantee the safety and security of workers so that not even a single worker died anymore.