Joshi congratulates Akanksha Kumari, 1st woman engineer to work in underground mine

Bengaluru: Coal and Mines Minister Pralhad Joshi on Tuesday congratulated Akanksha Kumari for becoming the first-ever woman mining engineer to work in an underground mine at Churi in North Karanpura area of Coal India arm CCL.

Kumari is the first ever woman mining engineer of Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL).

Joshi said that Kumari’s achievement is the true example of progressive governance to promote gender equality and generate more opportunities by the present government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi by allowing women to work in underground coal mines, the mines ministry said in a statement.

Kumari, a mining graduate, has joined the Churi underground mines, in North Karanpura area of Central CCL. In the process, she became the first woman Mining Engineer to join CCL.

Women employees have been shouldering the responsibilities ranging from officer to doctor to security guard and even running heavy machines like dumper and shovel and have excelled in each role.

However, this is the first time when the core mining activity of one of the biggest coal mining companies of the world will witness this progressive change.

The enormity of her achievement can be gauged by the fact that she is the second mining engineer in the maharatna conglomerate Coal India Ltd (CIL) and the first woman to work in an underground coal mine.

Before joining CIL, she worked for three years in Hindustan Zinc Ltd”s Balaria mines in Rajasthan.