Akanksha Kumari, a resident of Barkagaon in Hazaribagh district, has become Coal India's first woman mining engineer to work in an underground mine. Moreover, she is the second woman mining engineer in the Maharatna conglomerate Coal India Ltd (CIL). This is the first time when the core mining activity of one of the biggest coal mining companies in the world, will witness such a progressive step.
On August 30, the 25-year-old was officially posted in Churi underground mines in the North Karanpura area of the Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), the public sector undertaking, Prahlad Joshi, union minister of coal, mines and parliamentary affairs congratulated Akanksha and highlighted the government’s progressive initiative for promoting gender equality.
An official statement by the CCL, said, “The enormity of her achievement can be gauged by the fact that Akanksha is the second mining engineer in the Maharatna Conglomerate Coal India Limited and the first one to work in an underground coal mine.”
In a statement to The Telegraph, India, Kumari said, “I developed a natural inquisitiveness towards mines and its activities since childhood, which encouraged me to opt for mining engineering at BIT Sindri in Dhanbad. I graduated in 2018. On August 25 this year, I formally joined CCL (HQ) and was posted in underground mines yesterday. None from my family has a background in the mining and coal sector but I thank them for their unflinching support that helped me follow my dreams.”