Safety Models

                                                      

             

                      PRAGMATIC SAFETY MODEL

“The article has been written based on intensive fieldwork at grass root level and implementing these steps in reality resulting into increased efficiency, productivity, safety, ecology after achieving appreciable cost effectiveness and reducing undue stress on the work force. This is part of the complete article. This resulted into development of logo used in all the articles written by the author.”

SAFETY

Safety may be considered as the function of conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind for negotiating the unsafe thinking process, postures and situations encountered during execution of certain tasks with prompt, appropriate and commensurable actions, steps and processes. These are evolved after thorough technological thought process and review of field application continuously. No body can successfully and perfectly accomplish the simplest work unless he has been trained or has gained experience initially either by himself or others in the appropriate methodology required to complete the work safely and efficiently. Reiteration of the whole spectrum of such methodology in conscious and subconscious mind may automatically result in whenever such situation arises. The training requirement becomes more and more pertinent and rigorous with increasing complexity of the job. It is not easier for the novice mind to evaluate complex and complicated ingredients of the whole gamut of technological inputs required to suggest the most optimal solution to ensure the safety of man, machine and the place. The perceptual technical competence of the mind may contemplate the unsafe elemental constituents of the jobs to be encountered during the operations in line to the production processes and incorporate all the safety features and measures in actions, processes, operations, working places and machines.

This may be evolved after undergoing appropriate education, in-depth experience of the job, intense relevant training and pragmatic technical scrutiny of planned designs. The resulting status may further generate additional parameters to introduce more and more refinement till perfection is achievement as such there should be dynamic approach to update standard procedures and training structure accordingly. This may lead to evolution of innovative technological inputs to change the procedures altogether which may be more safe, effective and economical for the particular situation and time. This endless cycle of evolution of new innovative technological inputs will continue to operate progressively resulting into further safer, efficient and economical methodologies.  The most important and effective tool, to refurbish the competence and capacity of mind to formulate and develop safety consciousness, safe common sense and constant vigilance, is training which is to be imparted to all at regular intervals after suitably restructuring, modifying and technically upgrading its contents as per the requirement of the job. 

Mining is hazardous operation basically due to use of explosives, involvement of blasting parameters, unpredictable situations, unexpected working environment, variability in partially known geo-characteristics and various operations carried out in the area including the operations of different machines used in unstable, freshly exposed, restricted and constricted area. Opening up of more and more faces in virgin rock also destabilize the stresses in and around all the openings. There is continuous change in the stresses of in-situ rock as the mining consisting of development and stoping operations continue to advance along with blasting operations. It demands for additional consolidated technological efforts at each stage to cope up with the unpredictable unsafe postures and situations. In case of underground mining the requirement of appropriate support system for drives including rope stitching or in-situ filling of rock mass is one of the important step, if the influence of destabilized zone is large enough due to adverse geo-structural condition of in-situ rock. Filling of voids in stoped out area is another important aspect to stabilize the reactive stresses of surrounding in-situ rocks and hence stabilizing all the openings providing appropriate safety to man and machines. In case of situ filling of rock mass for pronounced, prominent and prevalent adverse geo-structures to improve the over all rock mass rating (RMR) of area has immense role to play for stability and safety. This appears to be a futuristic technological input to solve several problems that arise due to adverse rock mass characteristics, development of in-built permanent support system, change in the hydrological course of encountered water table, conservation of the underground water and increasing the availability of compact rock mass in case of dimensional stone mining.

The structural frame work of the “green safety triangle” representing the safety, quality and efficiency (as a result of innovative techniques) are interdependent, interrelated and interactive. Any structural deformity, disturbance or failure in any of these important links may decelerate, interrupt or completely collapse the production or desired resulting output. Safety neither can be seen nor touched but one can quickly be aware of it’s presence or absence by developing safety consciousness that have to be inculcated and acquired by persistent application of the trained mind with safe common sense, technological effort, continuity of work and constant vigilance.  Safety can also give fair indication for it’s presence and absence by the resulting quantity or out put, quality of work involved and the efficiency at which it is being achieved. Resulting poor out put at much lower efficiency and poor quality of work than designed may be considered as positive indication for presence of elemental unsafe ingredients in adopted process, operation and methodology and  that may be due to lack of appropriate incorporation of innovative technological inputs or due to inappropriate / inadequate training therapy.

Accidents take place only when there is involvement of person / persons in any incident which may occur due to certain unsafe act / acts of his own or others or due to unsafe working place or machines already existing or created by undertaking such activity / activities. The reasons for unsafe act of his own or others may be due to lack of concentration, lack of safe common sense, habit of taking unnecessary risk or being rash, inexperience, improper or untrained, poor safety consciousness, poor or no perception of the short and long term result of the action and abeyance of constant vigilance. Proper or safe act means the act undertaken after gaining appropriate experience and training with safe common sense, consciousness and constant vigilance having perception of short term and long-term results of such action. The unsafe working place or machines is result of either unsafe act of the person or certain action without incorporation of appropriate short term and long-term techno-managerial inputs including repair and maintenance or replacement, for sustainable safe posture. Therefore, the crux of the safety is proper or safe act with appropriate long term and short term techno-managerial inputs including required automation, robotics, repair & maintenance and replacement for safe execution of activity / activities.

MICRO LEVEL

At micro level safe habits are to be formulated in conscious, subconscious and un-conscious mind by effective and appropriate training of all the grass root level personnel. In addition to information given by supervisors there are five sensory organs that act like receptor or antenna for the mind where all signals and information sent by these most vital receptors are collected, processed and instructions are transmitted for particular action to be implemented. It is advisable to keep these organs always alert and attentive to collect and transmit accurate signals to the mind. Mind analyzes these signals at a great speed which, after auto matching with preprocessed perception of the situation inculcated by virtue of training and experience, re-transmit the signals to different organs for follow up actions. Therefore, it is very important to impart appropriate training and provide continuous explanation regarding importance of impacts of each elemental ingredient of safe technological steps, process, procedures and operation while working. These along with personnel observation provide appropriate experience, which ultimately project the correct and safe perception in conscious and sub conscious mind to use it at a later stage. If any of these in-built senses are not alert or have some diversion towards other matters it will not be possible to collect accurate signals regarding complete safety status and configuration and in that case mind will not be able to provide proper solution to the unsafe elemental ingredients existing therein, thereby increasing the chances of incidents or accidents. Human beings are connected with outside world via these senses only and it is said if two of these senses are missing simultaneously there cannot be any survival or existence. In other words if two of these senses do not receive appropriate signals of the situation some how the mind will not get complete information and down stream actions ordered will not meet the required inputs resulting into incident or accident.

The Indian custom to concentrate silently by remembering or praying God before starting any work and getting ‘His’ blessing for the success of work to be undertaken has great relevance in proper aligning and streamlining all the senses and concentrating these on the almighty initially and on the work later on. Such habits should be encouraged which have multidimensional impact on the work force. Firstly their ethical traditions are maintained and secondly their concentration and alertness of all their senses on the work in process will increase or improve. It will enhance the concentration level perpetually if the workers are allowed to under go stress relieving techniques like Perceptional Meditation after every two hours of work for about five to ten minutes that may increase the safety consciousness as well as the performance and efficiency. This may require certain additional training input. Once the workers are habitual to this technique they will continue to adopt these automatically as this is self-motivating and sustaining technique. In Japan stress relieving shops are available outside all the industrial houses, where the workers may go after two hours of work and under go meditation to eliminate complete stress generated due to various factors and result into relaxation and improved concentration. In fact this depends on the worker to decide the requirement of stress reliving technique to be undertaken. This invariably improves the efficiency of work force to a great extent. This is equally true for all levels especially for planning level as autosuggestion and contemplation (Bhav Kriya) is essentially required for these people. People working in offices can experience the marvel of stress relieving technique themselves by detaching themselves from all the inflows and agitating thoughts by concentrating on the breaths being inhaled and exhaled for few minutes and thereby relaxing the whole body from all the stresses and strains. After five minutes one may develop altogether a calm and well composed posture with new thought process and approach without any malice, tension and initiation. This may provide an effective environment friendly posture to contemplate solution for most complex and complicated problems of vicious nature.

Preprocessed conceptions that are to be germinated in minds of micro level personnel are to be developed at macro level after thorough evaluation of innovative technological inputs essentially required for completion of the work safely, efficiently and economically. These, when transmitted through transcendental level to conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind of the micro level personnel, help in formulating or developing the safe habits and common sense depending on education, knowledge, competence, capacity, skill, experience, receptiveness and training of the person. That is why all these parameters play vital role in selection of the person for particular job. The primary function of education, training and experience is to project and germinate the appropriate and safe characteristics of the job requirement in the conscious and subconscious mind of the person. The vocational training rules fulfill this requirement of the human behavior to certain extent at grass root level. The training requirement is an on going process and it’s contents have to be modified and updated each time to suit the requirement at that particular point of time.

All the unsafe acts of the personnel at grassroots level may be recorded and signed by the concerned person and the supervisor basically to make the persons conscious about their unsafe acts and secondly for evaluating and structuring appropriate training courses they have to undergo so that reoccurrence of such unsafe acts are minimized or eliminated. Continuance of such unsafe acts may result into sever incidents or accidents knowingly or unknowingly. At this level all the personnel are encouraged to point out the unsafe working places openly without fear which may be considered as most surprising and or disturbing steps by most of the transcendental level people but very soon there won’t be any place left as unsafe. This may allow the grass root level personnel to vent off their suppressed feeling by raising complaints regarding unsafe working places. If these complaints are not attended in time with effective steps, these may become perpetual sore points both for transcendental level and macro level. Otherwise also the workman representative may constantly raise these points regarding unsafe working places to counter act any management decision as such there is no harm in inviting their views in this regard. In fact each of the unsafe working places may cause substantial loss in effective work and morale of the work persons. It will be discussed how this methodology may help in boosting up the production along with higher confidence level in the work force. Rectification of unsafe working places has to be done in association with transcendental personnel so that additional precautions are taken as required by the status of the unsafe configuration of the working place. It is myth that lot of time may be wasted in such remedial measures and may cause huge loss of production. In fact such unsafe places always remain explicit or implicit bottleneck and stumbling blocks in the process of achieving the targeted production and required out put continuously and consistently. Standard work procedures developed based on these considerations may go a long way in helping and streamlining the safety in operations.

 

TRANSCEDENTAL LEVEL

At transcendental level safety has to be managed by introducing competent personnel required under statute which will develop compact and fertile base to receive and transmit the technical matters related to safe practices that are supposed to be most efficient practice at the grass root level.  Mining operations involve the use of explosives invariably, which is inherently dangerous. The total energy inherited by the explosive cannot be consumed in the required quantity for the effective work to be undertaken / executed. The excess energy generated in different forms result into several undesired, unsafe and hazardous conditions and situations in and around the working area till all the complex waves and energy converted to other forms get consumed by generating the undesired changes in geo-characteristics of in-situ rock and ecology. Extent of the undesired influence on the area depends on quality, quantity of the explosive, blasting frequency, blasting parameters, geo-characteristics of area and the rate of change in these geo-characteristics due to destabilization and reorientation of the inherent stresses. Most of the fatal and serious accidents occur due to inherent potential danger associated with explosives; it’s impact and the situation generated by use of these explosives directly or indirectly. Therefore, certain regulations have been framed based on complete technological thought process of the working environment which if followed can generate safe status for man, machine and mine.  These need to be updated with change in working environment and technology. That is why all competent persons are subjected to intense education, experience and training to get certificates of competency cleared so that safe characteristics of the situation and actions can be formulated in the conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind which can help them to take appropriate actions whenever situation warrants. Transcendental level people have to record in writing about the work performed and condition of the working place so that succeeding person can take appropriate steps without losing time for production. Updating the technological knowledge associated with all safety features in operation of each process, machine and encountered rock conditions may help in several ways in addition to improvement in safety status. The macro level must switch on their vocal organs continuously during their inspection to apprise about the impact of each and every technological input so that transcendental level competent personnel may go on   increasing their technological perception level. The result of such appraisals will help in upgrading the safety status along with production.

 

 

MACRO LEVEL

At macro level safety is to be managed by intermingling innovative technology with safety to achieve maximum production. The transcendent level persons are to confer with macro level to apprise about the need of technological improvement in any operation and process so that appropriate technological solution can be found and incorporated. At macro level all incidents are to be watched carefully and evaluated so that appropriate technological inputs can be incorporated to minimize or eliminate the incidents altogether. There is little difference in incident and accident and each of the incidents may cause any type of accident including fatal ones depending on the degree of involvement of the person. Therefore, it is better to eliminate the incidents so that there may not be any chance for accidents to occur.

The impact of the explosives and redistribution of inherent stresses of geo-structure around the working places have to be negotiated by introducing appropriate support system developed in accordance with the requirement without disturbing the planned or required production both in underground and open cast mines including dimensional stone mines having very high vertical benches due to the job requirement. At macro level all the incidents, accidents, unsafe acts and unsafe working places or machines are to be analyzed and inputs are to be generated in different forms so that after incorporation’s of these inputs may minimize or eliminate all these occurrences. It should be endeavor of the macro level to listen very carefully whatever is being told to them and the minutest point may be verified and effective rectification steps may be taken.

PLANNING LEVEL

Mostly planning personnel are considered to be expert in designing but if all pragmatic snags or deficiencies are well conceived by getting first hand experience regularly which may enable them to take care of these snags by incorporating innovative design inputs while designing and planning, the safe and efficient practical applicability will improve to a great extent. At the mine, all planning people may visit working places once in a week and apprise themselves with the operating parameters vis a vis their planned propositions. Planning and designing can reduce greatly the superfluous and infelicitous work and hence reduce the chances for incidents and accidents making the operation more eco-friendly, efficient, cost-effective, economic and productive. 66% reductions in horizontal development operation were effected by redesigning stopes that reduced the cost as well as possibility of occurrence of incidents and accidents in one mine.  All designs from planning department may be subjected to intense technical scrutiny by concerned macro level personnel in the field so that additional techno-safe features required in designs can be incorporated. This may be considered as initial negotiation of marrying the safety first with production must. All these techno-congregation may be transferred to training department to make structural changes in training and standard procedure development program. The requirement of additional safety and design features to be incorporated in machines may be transferred to machine manufacturers for further evaluation and incorporation. Industrial engineers may also have to be updated for their studies regarding calculation of efficiency of man and machine. Most of the major disaster, accidents and incidents can positively be eliminated or averted by appropriate planning as these steps are supposed to have better technological perception of the whole situation provided involved people have dynamically generated in-depth pragmatic vision and use of techno-managerial inputs. Act of technological improvisation for the forth coming disaster can be well perceived in advance and may help in averting or diluting the intensity to a great extent. It is equally important to develop contingency plans for all most all critical operations like sudden collapse of roof, air blast, inundation or sudden inrush of water, emission of gases, fire, subsidence, explosions due to gases and explosives, collapse of old structures so that whenever such major incident or accident occur it can be tackled most efficiently and safely without jeopardizing the life of the people involved at the place of occurrence and those engaged in rescue operations. Every minute detail may be worked out after contemplating the extreme dimension of the disaster. It is essential to undertake mock rehearsal occasionally to keep the system always alert.

INCIDENTS OF MISFIRES

Several incidents and accidents have taken place while dealing with misfires world over. It is always better to prevent incidents so that accidents may not result. In the development section there used to be misfires in all most all the faces and these incidents created great commotion and concern in the minds of all due to loss of development progress, requirement of additional man shifts, increased cost, decreased pull factor as well as increased unsafe acts and postures. Blasting crews were hammered but without any result. Unfortunately the in-charge was under pressure to achieve targets who overlooked the unsafe acts of the blasting crew for clearing the misfire by taking out all the explosives from misfired shots along with the primer cartridge as dealing with misfires according to regulation would have completely jeopardized the development progress. All these cartridges along with primer were stored in a room at the entrance of the adit and quite a few of such misfired cartridges were thrown in remote and isolated places. The whole situation was highly dangerous and the potential of accident was greatly increased all-round. This became a common phenomenon and there was no technical evaluation of the situation.  The unsafe elemental constituents or ingredients in all the steps, actions, efforts, procedures and processes were increased beyond tolerable limit and the progress of the development faces was too low to be tolerated due to misfires along with most undesirable resultant configuration of the drives requiring frequent reblasting and stripping. The complete spectrum of the incidents expressed the indifferent and indecisive state of mind of all the people working there specially of the supervisors who were responsible for loss of the progress, quality of the work, economics of operation, efficiency and generation of the potentially dangerous unsafe acts and unsafe places. This projected very poor habit formulation, common sense and vigilance in conscious and subconscious mind of all. The matter increasingly became (severely) grave and seriously dangerous.

The matter was already agitating the mind to find out the exact technical snags or deficiencies so that with appropriate technological inputs such disastrous incidents could be eliminated. The continuous and constant evaluation of the incidents and steps led to conclude that there might be some technical defect in the quality of the detonators as everything in control of the working people were checked and rechecked. When individual detonators were checked for continuity between shell and the leads, which is generally not done, immediately it was revealed that 25-30% detonators were faulty as the continuity was shown between leads and the shells. The solution of the potentially dangerous incidents was in sight. One blaster was exclusively deputed for this job on surface and all the detonators were tested before transporting these to underground. Instantly the rate of incidents of misfires was reduced to 10 %. Remaining misfires were due to pealing off the poor plastic sheath of the leads while pushing the cartridges and stemming these. The quality of the sheath of the leads was very poor. Immediately additional sheath sleeve was provided along with intimation to the manufacturer regarding poor quality of the detonators. Within few days the complete incidents of misfire were solved improving the progress of the face, pull of the blast, configuration of the drives by reducing all elemental unsafe ingredients involved therein along with reduction in cost and man shifts deployed. This also resulted in increase in the confidence level of all the work force. Their acceptability and receptiveness to listen and follow the instruction were phenomenally improved. Total concepts regarding the strength of technological inputs were changed improving their safe common sense, effort to take additional precaution and constant vigilance.

The manufacturer, DGMS and ministry of mines were intimated about the precariously poor quality of the detonators along with development of additional steps to eliminate the remaining misfires. DGMS office deputed a senior official to investigate into the matter and he was grossly perturbed to see the technical defect in the detonators. The manufacturer also sent his R&D expert to investigate but he could not tell appropriate technical reasons for such deficiencies except telling that they took all precautions at each stage and invited to visit the manufacturing unit. He agreed that the fuse head was touching the shell hence the continuity of circuit was established between detonator shell and leads. Ministry also agreed to allow import of the good quality detonators. This pressurized the manufacturer to eliminate the technical defect in the detonators and improve upon the quality and ultimately that was done. The moral of the incident is that one has to analyze the incidents at much greater depth technically and find out the solution so that all unsafe acts and working places are restored to safe one.

During ten years of long hole blasting operations there were only two occasions when misfire occurred. CMRS team of experts was given an independent area for carrying out long hole blasting operation for finding out effective technical solution to improve fragmentation. They were asked to study the on going operations for a week and evolve certain technique to improve the fragmentation so that minimum of secondary blasting was required to be carried out to improve the safety status and environment at draw points and grizzly. The team planned the experimental blast design and charged a ring using anodets at the toes of holes and electrical delay detonators at the collar of holes by attaching to hanging anoline length with of the detonating cord after making appropriate groups of delays. The first electrical detonator when ignited ejected and pulled others and misfire occurred. As the spacing between holes at collar was in inches only, a rock mass up to a height of 2-2.5 meters were dislodged due to impact of partial blasting and   the anoline in few holes were hanging at a height of 1.5-2 m above the roof of the drive making it difficult and dangerous to deal with the misfire. The lack of perceptional competence of mind, observational sharpness along with inadequate experience in the involved job work did not allow the expert team to contemplate that the detonating cord moves in sinusoidal fashion at a speed of it’s detonation velocity (about 6,000 m / sec) when blasted and may detach or terminate the other loose connections having sags with higher delays.  After this incidence the expert team of CMRS, for certain reasons best known to them left this work. It was really tough task to tackle such misfire, as it required immense safety precautions along with innovative technological inputs. With help of plastic standpipe, collars of all the holes were reconstituted to an easily approachable height. All the holes were re-primed, recharged and re-blasted.   

Second misfire occurred when a fresh but brilliant graduate trainee was deputed in the capacity of supervisor to blast a ring. It was categorically instructed to ensure that all anolines were tightly connected to detonating cord making it to touch the collars of all the holes without any lose connection and sags and he should be present while making these connections. Next day it was reported that ring misfired. It was immediately concluded that he was not present when connections were made. Later on he confessed about it. This happened because the supervisor could not impress upon the work force regarding impact of poor connection developing sag between anoline of two holes and detonating cord. He failed in his duty to exercise effective supervision by leaving the working place depending on the assurance of relatively fresh blasting team on this job. Though he knew the implication but workers assured him that they would follow correct procedure as such he left the place. Later on he became most effective shift in-charge. This again emphasize on training and role of effective supervision and supervisor.

It was customary to start long hole drilling without checking the sockets left by jackhammer holes drilled during development. Once a hole was drilled which punctured in lower level after dislodging a big loose. When the lower drive was inspected it was observed that a complete misfire was there in top horizontal side jack hammer hole and the long hole just terminated 3” above this misfire shoot having primer cartridge intact. Anything could have happened if the long hole would have pierced the misfire. This resulted in insistence with the development people to check all the sockets after cleaning the floor and loose dressing in the drives and give in writing that everything was checked and found safe. This helped a lot in drilling the downward long holes as there were no loose muck and collaring was done with great ease along with improvement in safety posture of the area. Due to scaling of loose the configuration of the drive also improved which facilitated to install the rig properly after improving the safety of the work persons there. There was huge impact on the workers as they felt secured to great extent and their efforts for carrying out these jobs were reduced giving more time for productive work after checking for loose rocks.

In case of small mines misfires go completely unnoticed. One cannot think of observing completely ignorant and negligent attitude towards explosives and blasting. It may look like a gossip if all the related affairs are narrated. The detonating cord is cut off by hitting with stone. Explosives are cut with the help of almost rusted knife made out of used sawing blade. The sockets left after blasting used to be re-drilled. Detonators are crimped with teeth. Detonating cord is used for tying different things. Fuse can be found all over the mine. Detonators are carried in pocket. Holes are drilled without designing the pattern required for particular job. Any number of holes are drilled and fired irrespective of provision of regulation. Explosive is stored in ordinary storeroom. Such an unsafe status requires immediate training of the people connected with explosives along with deployment of appropriate competent persons. While re-drilling in a misfired shot the explosive blasted, injuring the operator. Such a scenario may attract any sort of incident or accident. Most of the mine operators do not have license to use the explosive. As per the latest provision of the law, capital punishment can be awarded to the person having unauthorized possession of primary explosives like PETN, TNT and NG.  It requires intensive drive in small mines so that appropriate course is structured and training is imparted to almost all levels. The procedure to take license to use explosives has been simplified to a large extent. There are few agencies, which do take work on turnkey basis and get the job done for mine operators on very nominal charges plus actual expenses. In fact controlling officials never bother to take serious cognizance of such offenses.

CASE OF EYE ACCIDENTS

The rate of eye accident was third highest and it was matter of great concern and conspicuously attracting the attention. It was matter of change in habits of the work person and inculcation of safety consciousness along with elimination of undue advantages taken out of the situation. It required development of an in-built safety system so that work persons had no excuse for not using the protective devices provided for safe guarding the eyes. Though goggles were given to drillers but some time they were missing the goggles and other time they did not use these. The accidents were causing while flushing of the holes both in long hole drilling as well as face drilling. The second place of such accident was at grizzly / draw points where rock chips used to fly and hit while breaking the boulders by hammering. In order to eliminate or reduce the eye accidents it was considered to fix unbreakable acrylic sheet guard on the helmet itself so that it become an integral part of helmet and the fancy, attraction and alternate use of goggles were eliminated altogether. The driller could use these guards whenever required and there were no chances of forgetting these at home. The simple design was developed and action was taken to fix the sheet with the help of two hinges. Normally the guard flapped up with projected edge of the helmet and when required it could cover eyes without touching the nose. Later on a nose cut was also given on the guard sheet to facilitate the use. This made the drillers to use the guard while flushing the holes. Secondly doctors were requested to take full care in case of eye injuries, as these were the most vital organs of the human beings. Regular follow up were made to ensure that the accident injuries might not further deteriorate or aggravate. It was observed that persons used to complain about irritation in eyes and that used to compel doctors to declare them unfit. To be on safer side and avoiding confrontation with union representatives and doctors allowed them to go home without any regular medical check up of the eye injuries. Doctors were requested that either the patients should get medical treatment in the hospital continuously or should get safety therapy in training center but in no case they should be left uncared for further deterioration or aggravation of the eye injuries. This also helped in reducing the reportable accident cases. These two actions reduced the eye accidents to nil within 15 days. After some time such guards were fitted in the helmets of all the employees, which also reduced accidents due to hitting of flying rock pieces. It was easier to replace these whenever required.

Such situation may not arise in private mines but the incidents / accidents may occur and for that these guards may be of great help if fixed on helmets. 

CASE OF DRY DRILLING

This is the case where orthodox use of the on going operation is continuing without evaluating the unsafe, uneconomic and eco-degrading elemental constituents of the operation. Over crowded jackhammer operation subject the operators to polluting elements like vibrating impacts, dust, sound and oil mist continuously. The simple solution is not being implemented partly due to lack of transmission of technological inputs and partly due to dogmatic resistance for any new inputs. Dry drilling is prohibited under MMR until and unless effective device is used for collection of the dust.  The efficacy of dry drilling operation with dust collector will not be as much as that of the wet drilling. In almost all the small mines or open cast mines dry drilling is carried out without considering its impact on any of the parameters like safety, environment, economics, efficiency and health of the workers. Several accidents and incidents occur resulting into physical injuries and poor impact on the health of the operators but these are never reported except by NGO. It is in interest of all to stop dry drilling and go for wet drilling which will not only improve the efficacy and efficiency of operation but also reduce the cost, accidents and generate improved working environment. This requires intensive training and persuasion so that this great evil is eliminated giving much relief to work force and mine operators equally. A complete case study has been undertaken and published both in Hindi and English on this subject, which may be considered as guideline. Consumption of spare parts of drilling machine will reduce to a great extent. Life of drill steel will also increase considerably. Use of appropriately developed quarry bar will further make this operation more effective, efficient, cost-effective, safe and eco-friendly. Some persuasion from law controlling officials may go a long way to ensure that dry drilling is completely eliminated.

WORKING FACES

Maximum numbers of accidents have occurred due to disturbed face conditions as a result of redistribution of stresses due to new openings in the area and impact of blasting going on in the mine. The blasting develops fresh micro cracks in insitu rock and widens the already existing cracks, joints and bedding planes which in association with other unknown geo-structures of the area generate unexpected and imperceptible conditions along with redistribution of stresses. Loose is developed all-round the face and entrances leading to these faces which has to be dressed as soon as crew comes to face for fresh work. The face has to be tested by striking the crow bar and listening the resulting sound, which can give a fair idea about the loose in and around the faces. Set of appropriately designed loose bars, crowbars and other scaling tools are kept at all the working places in advance. All loose have to be dressed to make the areas safe. There is also impact of mass blasting of rings in stopes. Therefore, it is very important to check entrance leading to place of work. Checking means looking for conditions which if not rectified could cause incidents or accidents. Entrance is referred to the passage, man way, travel way, drives and any other mode by which men travel to reach the place of work. Place of work is area in which one or more man work. Before work is started the full attention and ability is to be diverted to the working place where main items are equipment and instructions. It used to be ensured that all tools & tackles, machines, protective devices are clean, properly set, well maintained and in safe working order and will continue to work for whole of the shift at least. This developed great sense of safety in complete work force and confidence in all the instruction passed on to them. By technological perception one used to develop all the results about the impact of blasting in stopes and enlisted all the places were it used to have maximum impact. All the concerned supervisors used to be fore warned to take extra precaution to make these places safe. Dy DGMS and DyDMS observed the famous ring blast with complete evaluation of predictions of its impacts all around the area that was given in writing before blast. They were highly appreciative of the techno-managerial efforts being taken even without any provision in that respect. This was all due to the fact that safety was completely wedded to production, technology and efficiency. In case of adverse geo-characteristics one has to develop support system, which may improve the rock mass rating (RMR) to stabilize the rock and improve the safety. Advance in-situ filling of rock may also improve the rock mass rating (RMR) thereby improving the stability of the in-situ rock mass.

PROTECTION OF BENCHES IN CASE OF OPEN CAST MINES

Benches in case of open cast mines are to be protected so that there is minimum of loose development after restricting the back break. Poor geo-structural conditions add to the phenomenon of development of loose and back break. There is always tendency to over use the explosive, which allows complete blasting of bench, elimination of toe as well as improved fragmentation. Over use of explosive creates several problems too like back break, excess flying of rocks, development of excess loose formation in freshly exposed bench and aggravation of already existing geo-structures. Use of exact and lesser quantity of explosives may not break the rock as per the designed configuration as it is unknown how much of energy will be dissipated or transmitted in other undesired work due to existing completely or partially unknown and varying geo-structural parameters of the insitu rock. In order to check the complex shock waves from traveling vertically downward it is always better to leave air pocket at the toe of the hole. This will positively prevent from development of fresh micro cracks, extension of already existing crack and allowing more perfect blast in rock mass situated vertically downward of the blast. This will reflect back the shock waves generating tensile stress waves at toe of the holes to further disintegrate the rock mass under blast. Use of HCT (Hem Crack Technique) is most effective in prevention of back break and further transmission of shock waves in adjacent insitu rock. The closely spaced and well-designed periphery holes can be blasted in advance with light charge with very poor coupling ratio after considering the design of the blast in execution. The formation of crack can be guided by development notches on side of the periphery of each hole along with a 7.5 mm thick and 150mm deep cut all along the required periphery to be developed by diamond wheel cutting machine. The dynamic stress developed due to bore hole pressure and the operating seismic waves that are complex combination of elastic waves that reverberate in the surrounding rock of the blast hole in compressive and shear mode after initiation can be well contained by induced crack all around the periphery of the blast. The developed crack may keep, the peak particle velocity within safer value and much below the threshold limit beyond this induced crack, saving all types of structures from damages due to blasting and vibrations. It is better to seal off all the cracks terminating in blast holes by simply by ejecting the black soil or gypsum powder with the help of compressed air pressure vessel. This will give much better result of the blast than utilizing the blast hole sleeve, which will reduce the decoupling ratio as well. Yet taking help of these technological inputs certain formation of some loose on benches cannot be avoided which have to be dressed with the help of machine before starting the work. 

Walls consisting of clays of different characteristics along with existing hydrological condition may fail at any point of time if appropriate technological actions are not taken in advance. Most of people do not even percept such conditions until and unless some mishap take place. Change in hydrological conditions are often overlooked.

PROTECTION OF HIGH VERTICAL BENCHES IN DIMENSIONAL STONE MINING

Higher vertical benches are the basic requirements of the dimensional stone mining. The regulation prohibits it. There is provision to take exemption from DGMS for keeping high benches after taking adequate precautions regarding safety of such high vertical benches. Till to-day neither controlling department officials has issued any circular regarding this nor the mine operators have applied for exemption. As this is case with all the mines it is better to issue circular under mines act to be implemented in dimensional stone mines for keeping high vertical benches. Rock mass rating (RMR) and slope mass rating (SMR) depend on spacing of joints, condition of joints, RQD, strength of intact rock, geo-structural characteristics of rock, physical characteristics of rock, impact of continuous blasting on geo-structure of the area and hydrological status of the area which play vital role in deciding the stable slope angle that can increase or decrease the recovery of ore or rock in case of massive ore bodies of dimensional rocks. Blasting is chief responsible factor to impart adverse impacts on all the factors responsible for improving the RMR & SMR; therefore, these two factors also get adversely affected. These two factors can be improved by insitu filling of the rock mass and ultimately the slope angle can be increased near to the vertical. There is almost no heavy blasting in case of dimensional stone mining thereby once the rock mass of the area is filled with appropriate cementing material there is remote possibility of collapse of walls or bench due to failure of geo-structural characteristics of the rock mass and other factors responsible for degrading RMR & SMR. As such there are two very important aspects. Firstly all the cracks, joints, bedding planes may be filled in advance so that chances of separation along these geo-structural characteristics are minimized or eliminated along adequate consolidation time to filling materials. This will also help in better recovery of fresh blocks. There is absolutely no problem to fill these geo-structural characteristics. Nature does the same job of filling of the joints and fractures when several congenial happenings take place causing the filling of cracks and joints in the area but take millions of years to accomplish the job. The natural chemical processes that take place after burial of a sediment, of which cementation is the most important, are collectively known as diagnosis. Modern scientific techniques can reduce the period of filling and consolidation considerably at a cost.  The filling is done at very high pressure.  Insitu filling with either organic or inorganic cementing materials can be carried out much in advance to give stability to rock mass. Secondly face can be equipped with appropriate devices which may be capable of giving audio visual indications regarding pressure being developed on the bench face due to geo-structural failure of the rock mass. Structural failure in these high vertical faces has caused several fatal accidents and is main source of fatal accidents in dimensional stone mining. In situ filling of these geo-structures appears to be technical solution, which have conservation capabilities too. Use of longer expansion shell type rock bolts with denting pressure U plate and electronic pressure gauge can indicate the pressure exerted on the high vertical walls due to structural yielding and failures. In waste area rope stitching may stabilize the ground and use of expansion shell type rock bolt with U type denting plate and pressure gauge can monitor the pressure coming on permanent waste benches. There is not much cost involved in utilizing these innovative techniques. The savings due to enormous recovery of additional fresh blocks will not only compensate the additional costs but also generate huge additional revenues.

TRANSMISSION OF SHOCK WAVES IN PUBLIC PLACES, RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS.

Wherever blasting is done near public places and residential buildings shock waves may travel and create certain structural damages in residential buildings depending on the quantity and quality of peak particle velocity generated. The sound wave generated due to air blast develop the compression and expansion in air which may create rattling of the doors and windows giving impression of damages in the houses made up of sand soil and stones.  The most optimum solution to subdue or eliminate the transmission of shock waves may be effected by generation of “self reflecting and destructing umbrella void” along the boundary of the leasehold area. Creation of air pocket at toe of the blast holes will prevent shock waves to transmit vertically down ward. These two steps may restrict the shock wave energy or it’s impact to remain restricted within the leasehold area without disturbing and damaging the structures existing outside the leasehold boundaries. This will also help in peaceful coexistence of the smaller insects, creatures and animals living in the nearby areas which otherwise would have been disturbed by the continuous impact of transmission of shock waves.

 

 

SAFETY GEARS

Safety gears consist of protective wears for the different vital organs of the body. There are two distinct problems firstly there may be mine operators who never bother to provide safety gears and secondly, the work persons may not use these effectively. Administrative and controlling departments may help in ensuring that mine operators provide all type of effective and appropriate safety gears (approved by DGMS) and all the competent persons have to ensure the effective use of these safety gears. The use of different safety gears either eliminates or reduces the severity of injuries on different parts of the body. In both cases these are vital and effective means to reduce the accidents. Helmets, safety boots, hand gloves, goggles or eye guards and long cloths may save several of accidents and reduce their intensities. If some body does not make use of these safety gears he commits a unsafe act which may be recorded in a register and taking signature of the person involved and competent person. After four or five of such unsafe acts the concerned person must given a note in writing in this regard. After five such notes he should be asked to explain in writing for repeating unsafe acts continuously. This will generate specific alertness in the work force to use the safety gears, which will positively help in reducing the accidents to a great extent. If there is any inconvenience in the use of protective gears it should be investigated and such problems should be solved either at shop floor level or at other appropriate levels. Constant persuasion will make work force to use these safety gears effectively for their benefits. The accident analysis shows that effective use of these safety gears is essential to reduce accidents. The mine operators do not provide safety gears in case of small mines. This has to be taken up very seriously by the law enforcing authorities. In some mines few of the safety gears are kept as show pieces and whenever law compliance authorities visit mines these are provided to the workers otherwise these are stored in the storeroom. Typical analysis of one year’s accident revealed that 49 % of the total accidents resulted in injuries to fingers, hands or forearms. This explains the usefulness of hand gloves, plastic armbands or gauntlets extending from wrist to the elbow. 22% of accidents resulted in injuries to ankles and feet. This necessitates the use of ribbed boots, which may provide protection to the arch of the foot and ankle, together with leggings extending to top of the tibia and fibula. 11% accidents resulted in injuries to the eyes. Wearing of goggles or protective glasses or guards may reduce such type of accidents. More than 80% of reportable accidents can be eliminated by use of safety wears mentioned above. Any kind or type of incident or accident may turn into fatality which can occur only once in one’s lifetime.  As such use of these protective gears can either eliminate or minimize the chance of such fatality. All senior people including the chief engineers and senior managers were requested to use all safety gears without that they were requested not to enter the safety gear zones. This impressed the work persons too and they developed habits to use almost all safety gears required to be used in their place of work.

ONE SAFETY ACT EVERY DAY BY EACH COMPETENT PERSON

If one safe act is done by each and every competent person every day it may change the attitude of the work force immensely and greatly develop the safety consciousness. Such a safe act should be recorded in a book so that macro level may analyze these and generate certain technological input to make things safer. Safe act should be small and crisp so that it may impresses the work person. It should not be in form of any “order to execute” for improving or eliminating the unsafe posture. The technique was successfully implemented in field giving astonishing results.

CASE OF TIDINESS

One of the main track levels was not having drainage system as such it used be filled with water and filth. Invariably several derailments used to take place every shift. Derailment of locomotive and granbies were serious incidents and it used take several man-hours to rerail these loaded or empty granbies. The slipperiness of the track added fuel to the fire. Sleepers and ballast never remained in good condition. It used to cause accidents too. The level incharge was dumb founded for perpetual problems regarding frequent incidents and loss of production. He was of the firm opinion that to rectify this problem it may take few months and no body will allow stoppage of production for such a long period. It continued for years. As soon as the level came under author the first job done was formation of a crack team to develop appropriate drainage system in the level and rectify the complete track laid on the level along with shunting provisions. The production was to be continued along with this essential work to be executed on top priority. The complete schedule of production was maintained and whole level was renovated. This looked like different mine altogether. All the incidents of derailment were completely eliminated which used to be caused due to poor state of affairs of track system. Confidence level of persons working there increased to a new height and people started working with more zeal and confidence. Both air and water lines were realigned and re-laid which also reduced several incidents used to be caused due by striking of helmet with these lines. The whole level of several kilometers was white washed with innovated technique within few days. This improved the illumination to a great extent. Those who visited this level after rectification could not believe the changes made there without hampering the production work. The approach altogether changed the behaviour of work persons and there was no unsafe feeling in any body though there was intense pressure of renovation work for about one month. It looks an easy task but the whole work was carried out under the personal care of the author. Lot of innovative technological inputs was used in most of activities without which the work would not have been accomplished.

Draw points used be filled with slurry and Eimco-824 having iron cladded solid tier with grousers used to be operated. There were such severe jerks that no operator could operate these loader by standing on the platform provided for the operator on the side of the loader. Grousers used to get eroded away and chipped off requiring regular welding thereby increasing the down time. The loader was being operated at 25 % efficiency only.  The grousers on iron cladding required to be welded frequently to provide grip with the operating ground.  This created several incidents and accidents ultimately technological solution were found to make the operation smooth and incident / accident free. Air-inflated tiers replaced the solid iron cladded tiers and reverse grade were given to draw points to keep these dry. This immediately increased the operating efficiency to 80% and reduced the rate of incidents and accidents to nil.

It used to be easier to drill top holes but slurry used to be collected in level drive keeping the area very untidy. Later on it was told to drill one of the bottom hole first to puncture in lower level so that complete water might be drained out by that hole keeping the level dry and tidy. In this fashion all the levels used to be kept tidy and clean. Ultimately slurry used to be passed to sump and from there it used to be lifted to surface.

CASE OF ON THE JOB TRAINING

Essentially the structuring of the training therapy need to be updated and upgraded all the time depending on the requirement of the elemental ingredient of the safe technological inputs in the operation or the process. When long hole drilling was started all of the work force including supervisors and officers were novice. There was lack of evolution of the requirement of safe technological inputs in the operation. The shifting and rigging of the drifter used to take several man shifts and special rigging gang consisting of six person was exclusively deployed to do the work. Drilling output per machine shift used to be 10-15 meters only. Lot of accidents and incidents were occurring.  It was matter of great concern for the top management. The author was made incharge of the operation and within few days of evaluation of the elemental ingredient of the operation, the rigging part was modified with innovative technique and the rigging gang was removed. The operator and helper could do the job with great, safety, ease and efficiency. The techniques adopted were simple but very effective. Now it was matter of drilling output. It was observed that several unsafe acts were performed which resulted into poor performance. The rig was not tightened and invariably the compressed air operated jacks provided with the rigs used to be inoperative. Mechanical threaded jacks were introduced and tightened with the help of oblong pointed bar after keeping wooden packing between rock roof and the jack top. Author operated the drifter for 8 hr. and 36m 0f drilling was achieved that was more than three times the regular output. Next shift operator drilled 45m and night shift person achieved 60m of output. The whole concept of long hole drilling operation was changed and after that day the output never looked back. The highest output recorded was 125m in a shift. The innovative safe techniques increased the productivity and efficiency eliminating the occurrences of any incident or accident.

All the mining engineers of the section were put on the job training till they achieved the output similar to that achieved by the workers. This allowed them to understand the pragmatic problems on the job and the process continued to improve.

Loading of ANFO in the long holes with the help of compressed air actuated ANFO loader was another new operation unseen and inexperienced by any body. The consistency of loading density in the hole was one of the main problems in getting proper efficiency of the blast. It was not possible to see the consistency of loading density in the blast holes and let the blaster know about their efficiency in the operation. Because of the safety of people handling the blasted ore depended on the out come and efficiency of the blast, it was essential to ensure perfect and uniform loading density. A completely new approach of mock practicing was evolved. 2” GI pipe was cut longitudinally into exactly two halves. Lugs with holes were placed at an interval of 1 m on both the halves so that these can be joined to make a complete pipe. This pipe was erected at a height and closed on upper end considering it as the toe of the hole. Now blasters were asked to charge the pipe. After charging it was lowered down on the surface and bolts of the lugs were opened to observe the condition of ANFO core. It was quite revealing that the ANFO was not loaded with uniform loading density due to several factors. Technical analysis was done for each parameters involved in compressed air loading like pressure of the compressed air, condition of ANFO, withdrawal rate of loading hose, length of the loading hose and so on. After few trials the complete training methodology was developed and all the blasters, blasting supervisors and engineers were trained. This was unique training methodology developed first time in the world.    

Later on when undersigned took over as mine manager all the engineers were given on the job training on all the machine till they achieved full proficiency. Later on workers were also given on the job training to improve efficiency and proficiency of the job along with complete safest posture in addition to the theoretical training given in the training center.

Conclusion

The safest method is the most productive method provided the inputs from appropriate innovative technology are evolved, evaluated and imbedded and the people at macro level adopt this techno-managerial philosophy rightfully. The different positive facets of the techno-managerial domain influence the psychology of the work persons considerably and it’s repeated positive impacts improve the receptiveness and compassion for the techno-managerial style. The positive results of techno-managerial competence establishes the credibility of the management much sharper and deeper with great consistency and regularity than any of the mode of transmission of safety consciousness as such once the credibility regarding production with safety through technological input is established the desired results will automatically start flowing in. Quick deliverance of rights attached with compulsive responsibility may enforce all decisions at micro and transcendental level when auto generative self-discipline is inculcated at macro level.

The structured safety model is not based on theoretical proposition or postulate but is based on real life observations, evaluations, experimentation, incorporation and implementations. It can be applied to any kind of accident or incident. Most of the disasters are results of failure of technological perceptual competence of the mind and non-incorporation of appropriate techno-managerial inputs, repair& maintenance, replacement at appropriate time for safe actions and resultant safe working places.  Accumulation of unsafe acts including non-execution of timely repair, maintenance and replacement are positively going to result into disasters causing immense suffering to human beings. It may appear that such an intense attention on safety may hamper the production increasing costs but to tell the truth it may on the other hand enhance the production, productivity along with increase in credibility, greater compassion for techno-managerial style after reducing the cost, incidents / accidents and other problems of real life situation. The motive of article is to discuss certain techno-managerial inputs taken in several cases based on real life experience in the field, which helped in eliminating the incidents and accidents, but due to paucity of space full article is not being presented.

These steps and efforts may develop consciousness about safety with production along with improved mental perception in this sphere. The present mental stigma of most of us specially the production people and mine operators to treat safety as stumbling block may also vanish. Safety first precisely means that all methods, procedures, process, actions, steps, places, machines and tools imbibe the intrinsically safe features after generating these from innovative “technological lust” so that  “safety first” is cohesively wedded to “production must” motto keeping “ trust of the environment ” intact after completely justifying the “conservation of each ounce of the non-renewable wasting asset” there after generating huge “profits”. This theme has been pictorially designed and depicted as under. In case of non-generation of huge profits one has to look out for alternate non-conventional innovative techniques, maximization of utility of all the excavated rocks and minerals so that cost-effectiveness may result in along with productivity, efficiency and safety.