A coal mine of the Eastern Coalfields Limited of Coal India, operating 200 metres below the surface, has topped the country in question of safer mining and has been awarded by the Director General of Mines Safety. The ECL operates within the Raniganj Coalfields, where the county first recorded coal extraction in 1774 by two Britishers.

The Shyamsundarpur colliery, under the Bankola Area of ECL, bagged the topmost position in the category ‘Coal Belowground Large’ at the Mines Safety Awards (MSA) 2024 held recently at the Biswa Bangla Convention Centre in Kolkata.

Samiran Dutta, chairman-cum-managing director, ECL and Niladri Roy, director (technical), ECL were handed over the award by Prabhat Kumar, director general, DGMS.

The Shyamsundarpur mine, as Roy said, “Currently operates Coal excavation works from nearly 200 metres depth below the surface and has a reserve of around 40 million tonnes.” The underground mine has a capacity to produce 1.59 million tonnes annually.

The ‘Mines Safety Awards (MSA) 2024’ was a national-level event designed to promote best practices and enhance safety in mining operations across the country. It has been initiated by All India Mines Safety Association (AIMSA) under the aegis of the Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS) along with Coal India Limited.

The underground mines operational for at least six months during the contest year is considered to have difficult mining conditions and satisfies certain technical conditions like, working degree III gassy seam, having longwall faces worked for at least six months, having mechanized development, having depillaring workings with thickness of extraction greater than 3.6 metres and, working seam having a gradient of 1 in 3 or steeper.

The Chinakuri coal mine in ECL, incidentally is the deepest underground colliery in the country. The mine operates 613 metres deep. The ECL, having 55 operational mines, had planned to produce 51 million tonnes in 2023-24 and now has set a goal for capacity addition of further 20 million tonnes by 2028, the senior officials said.