While the Telangana government was celebrating the state formation day, a blast in the Singareni Collieries snuffed out the lives of four contract workers and caused serious injuries to others. Accidents due to negligence and not following safety precautions in the underground mines of Singareni in the past have caused deaths of workers. This time it was in the open-cast mine that four workers lost their lives while on duty.

On 02-06-2020, around 10.30 am in the open-cast mine under the Ramagundam Division-3 of the company the process of blasting boulders was taking place when the incident occurred. Those on this job were contract workers engaged by a private company and four of them became pieces of flesh in the blast. The blasting material is supplied by the management and the responsibility of doing the blasting is entirely with the management while labour is supplied by the private agency. The site where the incident took place was at one time an underground mine called 9 Incline that was shut down six years ago and in its place the present OC project came up. It is learnt that a worker actually refused to put the blasting material into the boulder as there was excessive heat inside the once underground mine. But there were directions to the contrary and when the blasting material was being filled into the hole of the boulder the blast occurred. Since the entire process happens under the supervision of the management, the responsibility for the ghastly incident rests on it. Had it taken proper care before getting the blasts done, the accident could have been averted.

The NC of IFTU demands, payment of one crore to the families of the deceased, employment to a member from each of the families and punitive action against those officials responsible for utter negligence that caused the incident.

Aparna                                                                                    Pradeep    

03-06-2020