1 SALT REVENUE DEPARTMENT FOR THE OFFICIAL YEAR 1400-1901,
2 accident. The Inspector of Mines in India enquired into the
3 matter on the spot and reported on it as follows :—
4 “T consider that the deceased was solely to blame as
5 having through his own stupidity brought about his being
6 hurt.”
7 For the second fatal accident the mine officials were
8 more to blame, as tne operation in the course of which the
9 accident occurred was attended with some risk and ought to
10 have been superintended personally by some responsible
11 official. The danger unfortunately, however, was not realised,
12 Some sait in the roof of an open working was likely to fall,
13 and measures were accordingly taken to blast it down. A
14 tripod was set up, and an experienced miner mounting the
15 tripod proceeded to drill a hole for a blast in the solid salt
16 at a little distance from the partially detached mass. As he
17 commenced boring, he saw that this salt was separating. ;
18 and he accordingly dropped his jumper and began to des-
19 cend from the tripod. «While he was descending, the salt
20 fell on one of the legs of the tripod and broke it; the tripod
21 collapsed, and the miner was thrown on. his back on some
22 loose pieces of salt lying on the floor of a working’ about 6
23 feet lower than that on which the tripod had been placed.
24 The Assistant Surgeon was ou the spot very soon after the
25 accident, and the injured man was removed to the hospital
26 where it was found that he had sustained severe external and
27 ~ internal injuries. He died on the fourth day after the acci-
28 dent. The mining rules, as revised during the year in con-
29 nection with the preparation of a Departmental Manual,
30 provide that no dangerous work shall be undertaken in the
31 mine except in the presence of the Superintendent or his
32 Assistant.
33 Inthe third’casea block of salt fell on a miner's left
34 hand, causing a compound fracture of a finger.
35 No accidents occurred at the Warcha Mine or Kalabagh
36 quarries,
37 42. The preventive and other subordinate establishments
38 in the division were carefully revised and reorganised during
39 the year by Mr. Bolster, the Assistant Commissioner, who
40 has served for more than 25 years in the’ division; and by
41 the adoption of measures for burying and otherwise securing
42 small outlying exposures of salt throughout the Range in-
43 stead of keeping peons posted to w&tch them, a large re-
44 duction was effected in the strength and cost of the preven-
45 tive establishment. A large portion of the sanctioned Sultan-
46 pur establishment, costing Rs. 6,060 a year, was employed
47 upon deputation on preventive duty in this division ; and the
48 whole of this establishment, and a portion of the sanctioned
49 establishment of the division, consisting of 5 petty officers
50 and 125 peons, was brought under reduction during the
51 year. Provision was at the same time made for the appoint-
52 ment (a) of sweepers as temporary servants for conservancy
53 work in the Mayo and Warcha Mines and at the depéts, (4)
54 of an experienced miner asa mine overseer on the temporary
55 establishment to assist in mine inspections, and (c) of
56 temporary chowkidars instead of peons on the pensionable
57 establishment to hold charge of the departmental rest-
58 houses in the Range, to supervise work inthe workshops of
59 the Mayo Mine, to watch the pipes and reservoir by which
60 Khewrah is supplied with water, and to supervise sanitary
61 arrangements in the Khewrah village. The miner Jumbar-
62 dars’ allowances were also transferred from the permanent to
63 (5...)
64 _C1SINDUS MINE!
65 Revis'p ond rducirn
66 O. te rey ear siya
67 othe- Suvordinale @ .
68 tali: Le +3