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China Urges Coal-Mine Managers Lead Pit Shifts, Monitor Safety

Posted on: Tuesday, 8 November 2005, 09:00 CST

Text of report by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

Beijing, 6 November: "All types of coal-mine enterprises must arrange responsible persons and production operation managers to lead work shifts in coal pits and ensure that in each shift at least one responsible person or a production operation manager must be arranged to guide the shift in working on the spot. The responsible person or a production operation manager of a shift must go down to the pit and come to the surface together with the workers of the shift."

On 6 November, the report learned from the State Administration of Work Safety Supervision [SAWSS] that the Development and Reform Commission and the SAWSS had jointly issued a circular demanding that responsible persons and production operation managers of coal mines go down to coal pits to lead work shifts and also issued a detailed specific regulation governing the system of sending responsible persons and production operation managers to coal pits to lead work shifts.

The priority responsibility of the personnel who go down to coal pits to lead work shifts is to ensure safety in production. The personnel who go down to coal pits to lead work shifts must grasp the condition of safety in production of the work shift under their guidance, strengthen inspection and making the rounds of key sections and important links, promptly discover hidden danger and organize people to eliminate it, promptly check acts of violating regulations and discipline, and strictly ban commands in violation of regulations and ban the organization of production exceeding the capacity.

A relevant responsible person of the SAWSS explained that by going down to coal pits to lead work shifts, responsible persons and production operation managers of coal mines can get a better understanding of the condition of safety in production in coal mines, promptly discover and eliminate the lurking danger of accidents, effectively stop the phenomenon of violating regulations and discipline, further elevate the level of safety management in coal mines, and gradually improve the situation of safety in production in coal mines.

When a major lurking danger and a serious problem that threaten the lives of workers occur in coal mines, the personnel leading work shifts must immediately adopt such measures as suspension of work, dispersing workers, and eliminating lurking trouble according to regulations, and promptly report the matter to the head of a coal mine or the head of a sectional work team. When an accident occurs in a coal mine, the head of the coal mine or the head of a sectional work team must be made accountable. At the same time, the personnel leading the work shift must also be made accountable for the relevant responsibility.

"Once discovered, those who resort to deception must be severely punished," the responsible person pointed out explicitly. After surfacing from a coal pit, the responsible personnel and production operation managers of a coal mine who have gone to lead work shifts in coal pits must register in detail the time of their visit, the places they have visited, the routes they have gone through, the problems they have discovered, and their opinions for handling the problems. These records must be kept for reexamination.

Coal mine safety monitoring and supervising organs at all levels will strengthen inspection and supervision on the establishment and implementation of the system of requiring responsible persons and production operation managers of coal lines to go down to coal pits to lead work shifts. Moreover, coal mine safety monitoring and supervising organs will also promptly report the relevant information to organizational personnel departments or state assets supervisory and control departments to be used as an important criterion for evaluating cadres.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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