On 2^nd Feb., 2001, 28 miners met a watery grave as 16 million gallons of water rushed into the Bagdigi mine of Bharat Cooking Coal Ltd. (BCCL) in Dhanbad district, completely flooding the mine within minutes. Political leaders of various ruling class and revisionist parties, many of them being prominent trade union leaders too, made their pilgrimage to the site, shed crocodile tears, vied with each other in demanding or promising compensations; ranted and raved at the management’s negligence and promised that heads would roll and then promptly forgot about it. Some minor functionaries will of course take the rap but they too will be rehabilitated later. In BCCL it is always back to business till the next “accident”, without any apportioning of blame or any corrective measures. Five years ago in the Gazlitand colliery, at a few kilometres distance from Bagdigi, 64 miners had been drowned because of flooding of the mine. The enquiry report of that is accumulating dust and promises made in Parliament remain promises. Some officers concerned have been promoted. Will it be any different this time? Is it not ironical that the enquiry is being conducted by the Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS) which itself is in the dock? As if to mock all the “pilgrims” of Bagdigi, within a week another mine in Chetudih, very close to Gazlitand, got flooded in a similar manner. Fortunately Bagdigi had made the workers alert and here they managed to rush out in time except one unfortunate worker.

A team of the Bihar Mines Lal Jhanda Mazdoor Union (IFTU) enquired into the matter including going down to the very spot from where the water barrier was breached. To call this tragedy an accident or even negligence is a gross understatement. It was nothing short of murder. The flood waters came from a reservoir in the abandoned workings of the adjacent Jairampur colliery. This reservoir was there since 1962 when mining was stopped in that seam and water from it was being regularly pumped and used. The Bagdigi mine is at a deeper level and the coal seam was being excavated upwards towards the water. Water had been seeping from the barrier between the two mines since one week and had been repeatedly pointed out by the miners but no action was taken. They were forced to continue work and blasting continued nearby inviting disaster. The barrier gave way and the entire mass of water gushed in giving little chance to those in its way. In fact the first inkling overground of disaster came when the pumps in Jairampur colliery suddenly went dry.

The contempt for the lives of the miners was witnessed even in the rescue operations. For 24 hours there was no organized rescue attempt. The only forces mobilized in significant strength were the police to lathi-charge and keep at bay the angry relatives and co-workers, who sought to confront the chief minister and other VIPs of whom there was no shortage with the District itself having 4 ministers in the Jharkhand cabinet. The high volume pumps imported after Gazlitand were nowhere to be seen and ordinary pumps were trying to perform an impossible task. Later divers were called from the navy, but they were frustrated in their efforts by inaccurate survey maps. Two bore holes for supplying air and food were attempted but with wrong maps they were bound to fail. The extent of callousness and anarchy can be judged from the fact that for 2 days the management could not even confirm the number and names of the trapped miners.

Despite the entire criminal bungling, one miner, Salim Ansari, survived the ordeal for 5 days before he was rescued. His testimony clearly shows that at least the 5 miners who were with him in an air pocket at a higher level and probably others similarly placed could have been saved if prompt and efficient rescue operations had been conducted.

There are many unanswered questions that point accusing fingers. It is standard mining practice that mining activity should not be undertaken within 200 feet of a water body. The law further mandates that when there are two adjacent mines, the DGMS has to ensure co-ordination, joint surveys and has to supervise the mining. How is it that the barrier in this case had been whittled down to barely 6-7 feet? The DGMS is supposed to periodically visit mines and check. A DGMS team had recently done an inspection. Or was the inspection done only on paper? How did they not know that the survey maps were wrong? Or were they in collusion with the management in permitting extraction of coal and not showing it on the survey map? Why was no sonic survey (a well established technique) ever resorted to for mapping such a water body and determining the actual thickness of barriers? The DGMS, which is supposed to be a govt. watchdog independent of the management, has sweeping statutory powers to stop work in any mine at any time. DGMS has swung into action after Bagdigi, ordering closure of 7 more mines but interestingly in the past 5 years it had not found a single mine unsafe enough to order stoppage of work. Finally, there is a hierarchy of Mines Safety Committees from mine level to national ministerial level. At all levels representatives of the five JBCCI unions- INTUC, AITUC, CITU, HMS, BMS- are members. Why have they never intervened at any level? As for the Government it has never acted to ensure punishment to the guilty in the numerous accidents and the ministerial committee on mines safety, resurrected after Gazlitand, has been defunct for years. In this matter too, all sides are waiting for the dust to settle and ensure that the issue is quietly buried later.

The Dhanbad area, home to BCCL and IISCO (of Chasnala notoriety) has the highest accident rate in the country in mining. It abounds in good quality coking coal available relatively superficially and can be approached and extracted with relatively primitive although unsafe techniques. Prior to nationalization a multitude of private owners, in their greed for profits, resorted to what has been succinctly described as “rat-hole” mining, with scant regard for safety. After nationalization also, there has been no radical overhaul. Very few new underground mines have been opened and the same mines have been extended in a patchwork, ad-hoc manner with some partial safety measures. Investment in underground mining has been misappropriated. In fact, the rampant institutionalized corruption leading all the way to New Delhi, is a major factor contributing to accidents.

Abandoned seams have to be sealed and closed with sand where required. Sand-filling is often on paper and supporting timber is of poor quality. Coal is illegally extracted from pillars in the mines. Coal extraction done illegally is not shown in the survey map as was the case with the barriers in Bagdigi. Thousands of tons of coal are illegally sold and workers are compelled to work in unsafe conditions to fulfil official production targets.

The ruling class and revisionist trade unions are at best meek capitulators and at worst direct participants in this corrupt nexus. Workers safety ofcourse does not figure on their agenda and if workers spontaneously protest or refuse to work, they are frightened off with the threat of disciplinary action or of closure of mine and loss of work. With the system of piece-rate wages prevalent to a large extent in underground mines even now, the threat of stoppage of work is a potent economic weapon.

After the flooding incidents, there were spontaneous protests in many mines against unsafe working conditions. In order that they do not remain only a temporary reaction, such protests need to be channelized into a movement to compel punishment of guilty and implementation of all safety measures. The stress has to be on demanding investment to improve conditions in existing mines and opening of new mines, rather than simply for stoppage of work in unsafe mines. For the govt. and management are only too willing to use even this tragedy as a pretext to close some mines in pursuing their agenda of downsizing the workforce.