Among workers most susceptible to tuberculosis, coal-miners in a state-owned colliery in West Bengal laboured through the Covid-19 pandemic even when sick. Under-reporting of deaths, leaving vaccination to workers, loss of pay when ill—the experiences of miners and supervisors contradict the claims of a subsidiary of the world’s largest coal-mining company.

Pandabeshwar (West Bengal) & Mugma (Jharkhand): Sukanto Das, 60, cooled himself with a bamboo hand-fan in the dense heat 350 feet underground in the Eastern Coalfields’ Khottadih colliery in Pandabeshwar block, about 200 km northeast of Kolkata.

He sat on his haunches drenched in sweat during a break, after 45 minutes of hammering and smashing coal seams. The mineworker’s yellow helmet, dulled with dirt, almost swallowed his narrow head, and coal dust specked his skinny bare frame.

Das said he tired easily since he returned to work after a bout of illness in May 2021. He could not say if he was infected with Covid-19.

“I had high fever and cough and cold for two weeks in May and could not work,” said Das. “It set me back by Rs 4,200. As a contract worker I earn Rs 300 a day.”

The Pandabeshwar mines in Raniganj coalfields, like all others, worked non-stop during the Covid-19 pandemic, since coal-mining operations were exempt from government of India lockdowns, and power demand had surged during the pandemic, especially during the second wave from April 2021.

The company that employs Das, the state-owned Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) claimed it provided miners protection against Covid-19—social- distance protocols, masks and sanitisers. But down in the mines of Khottadih, where this reporter spent an eight-hour shift, workers were unanimous in saying they were given neither masks nor sanitisers, nor was social distance maintained. The government in New Delhi disregarded pleas to consider them frontline workers for vaccination.

ECL has dragged its feet on vaccine drives for its 28,946 semi-skilled and unskilled coal workers across 78 coal mines, said Vijay Kumar, an overseer at Khottadih colliery.

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