Izvestia: “Coal mine managers to go underground”
Work safety regulations to be toughened at local mining companies.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting on the problems of the mining industry. The Federal Service for Supervision of Environment, Technology and Nuclear Management (Rostekhnadzor) plans to overhaul the work safety system at coal mines. Notably, coal mine managers will be required to personally monitor the situation underground.
In 2010, 22 accidents were recorded at coal mines, including 17 in Kuzbass. A total of 135 miners were killed, including 91 at the Raspadskaya mine.
Rostekhnadzor Head Nikolai Kutyin told the Prime Minister that safety standards had been checked at 148 mines. Last year, 230 protocols on work safety violations had been sent to local courts, with the courts upholding 215 protocols. Only 63 of 158 mines in Russia are equipped with some safety systems. Kutyin told Putin that his department will submit amendments to two or three laws to the Government by the end of 2011, and that the amendments "will drastically change work safety at the mines."
"We work in two directions. First, we draft new regulations for the old Soviet-era mines. Second, we draft new regulations for the construction and operation of new mines," Kutyin noted.
He said coal mine managers might have to go underground and oversee compliance with work safety standards.
Rostekhnadzor received extremely broad powers after the Raspadskaya mine disaster and is now reports directly to the government. It has the authority to suspend the work at coal mines and their managers for gross work safety violations pending court verdicts. After the disaster, the government was forced to revise the remuneration system for miners. Previously, the employers themselves stipulated fixed wages, and the rest was production based. The mine owners estimate current average per-capita wages at 50,000 roubles.
The government has completely compensated the families of the miners killed in the Raspadskaya mine disaster. However, some debts dating back to the mid-1990s have not yet been repaid. After the meeting, Putin met with Nina Balanich and Nadezhda Shchukina, the widows of miners killed at the Vorkutinskaya mine. They have been waiting ten years to leave the Komi Republic where the mine is located. After the break-up of the Soviet Union and the "monetisation" of privileges, both women were dropped by an organisation that returns the miners to their home.
Shchukina said she works at a daycare centre, earns 10,000 roubles with all the surcharges and is unable to independently leave the Far North. The Prime Minister promised to provide her with housing.
"We will reach an agreement with the corporate shareholders, and will do this [acquire housing] on a parity basis. The government's Reserve Fund will allocate 50%, and the rest will come from the shareholders. We will buy apartments on the market right away and give them to you," Putin said.
"We are ready to join in and to solve this old problem," said Severstal CEO Alexei Mordashov who owns a number of mines in the Komi Republic.
The Prime Minister assured the widows that they will receive apartments in those regions where they will relocate and instructed the concerned officials to compile resettlement lists.
Yulia Shestopyorova
