Contributing over 10 per cent to India’s Index of Industrial Production (IIP), the coal mining and coal-fired thermal power generation sectors plays a vital role in the country's economic growth. However, considering the sector’s inherent environmental and safety concerns, high standards of sustainability-led process are critical.
Sustainable initiatives in terms of environment and occupational health and safety by companies like Essel and Adani Group, across their coal mines in India, are notable. The use of eco-friendly surface miners is one such measure undertaken by Adani. This, in turn, reduces labour and time requirements as well as the chances of safety complications.
Similar technology is also being adopted by the Aditya Birla Group-backed Essel Mining Division at the Rajmahal coalfield in Jharkhand. The elimination of the need for drilling and blasting enhances the safety of miners to a great extent.
For operations like mining where occupational safety is all the more important, organisational culture that promotes the same is imperative. From providing training to its employees to celebrating Safety Week every quarter for raising awareness, the Adani Group has been emphasising a lot on inculcating safe work practice across its coal mine projects in India.
The Parsa mine site, which has had zero unsafe incidents ever since the inception of its operation, is the result of safe work practice within the organisation. Owing to such endeavours, Adani has garnered multiple accolades including the Greentech Safety Award in Metals and Mining Category.
As production of coal continues to be substantially high, so are the safety concerns associated with it. Thus, to ensure that employees' safety is not compromised, conducting training and awareness programmes all the while deploying state-of-the-art technology and equipment for workers is the need of the hour.
