400 died in mines in 3 years due to violation of safety norms

NEW DELHI: Violations of the safety norms in coal, metal and oil mines have taken 400 lives during the last three years while four people died due to fatal accidents in January this year, Parliament was informed today.

Replying to a written question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Steel and Mines Vishnu Deo Sai said 121 persons had died in mines in 2012, 162 in 2013 and 117 in 2014.

The number of accidents during those three years stood at 115, 141 and 112 respectively, he said. Fatalities as well as accidents were the maximum in coal mines.

Four deaths in January this year resulted from the same number of accidents - three in coal mines and one in metal mine.

"...the Government has the mechanism to assess the number of fatal accidents and number of persons killed due to those accidents. All these accidents occurred due to some violations of safety norms in the mine by the mine management or the workers of mine," Sai said.

The Minister also said officials of Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS) make periodic inspections of mines to ensure that the management of the mines carries out the mining operations in accordance with the legal provisions.

Quoting provisional data from the DGMS, he said 3.52 lakh people used to work in coal mines in 2013, 1.88 lakh in the non-coal mines and 22,533 people in oil and gas mines.