Jawahar Khani-5 opencast mine at Telangana’s Yellandu to be closed soon, workers’ fate uncertain

Closure of JK-5 OC has cast shadow on the fate of around 230 regular workers and around 100 contract workers who served in the mine so far

Yellandu (Kothagudem): The sounds of siren, buzzing of dumpers and shovel machines would soon go silent at SCCL’s Jawahar Khani-5 opencast mine at Yellandu as the mine is set to be shut down.

With the coal reserves exhausted Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) management has reportedly decided to close the mine as its time-limit ends on March 31, ending over 30 years of coal mining in Jawahar Khani area. JK-5 OC started coal production in 2008 after converting an underground mine JK 29 deep, more than a decade old mine. An old underground mine 21 Incline was closed sometime back.

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The closure of JK-5 OC has cast shadow on the fate of around 230 regular workers as well as around 100 contract workers who served in the mine so far. In addition to that the mining activity in Yellandu, which once witnessed buzzing mining activity, has also come to close with closure of JK-5 OC.

The SCCL management is said to have planned to transfer the workers in Yellandu to other mines. But the workers and trade unions leaders are appealing to the management to adjust them locally, which seems to be unfeasible in view of lack of mining activity in Yellandu.

According to officials, coal production in JK-5 OC would continue to complete the production target set up to March 31 and after that there would be no coal production in the mine. No new production target would be set for the mine.

Speaking to Telangana Today, TBGKS leader S Ranganath said that the management should try to commence the proposed opencast mine at Poosapalli in Yellandu mandal at the earliest so that the workers of JK-5 could be accommodated in the new mine. In view of the reports that coal exploration and its transportation to surface in Poosapalli mine would be given to private parties, the trade union leaders want the company to handle the task itself engaging the regular as well as contract workers.

Usually in SCCL’s opencast mines private parties are engaged in removing overburden while coal would be extracted by the company workers. If private parties are engaged to extract coal it would affect the livelihood of the workers, especially the contract workers, said Ravula Satyanarayana, who has been working as belt cleaner for several years in JK-5 OC.