16. Composition of Safety Committee in mines. – (1) The Safety Committee shall consist of an equal number of members representing the employer and the workers, which shall not exceed twenty.

(2) The representative of the employer on safety committee, in the mine shall be nominated by the employer and shall, as far as possible, be officials in direct touch with or associated with the workings of the mine, preferably the heads of major departments of the mine and will consists of;

(a) the manager referred to in section 67 of the Code shall be the Chairman;

(b) five officials or competent persons of the mine nominated by the Chairman;

(c) the Safety Officer, or where there is no safety officer, the senior most official next to the manager, who shall act as Secretary to the Committee;

(3) The representative of the workers in the Safety Committee shall be chosen in the following manner, namely: -

(a) where there is a sole negotiating union or a negotiating council or negotiating union, shall nominate the worker’s representatives on the Safety Committee and in the case of the negotiating council, the nomination shall be in the manner that every registered Trade Union representing in negotiating council shall be represented in the Safety Committee in proportion to the number of workers of the industrial establishment who are members of such Trade Unions.

(b) where there is no sole negotiating union or negotiating union or negotiating council as referred to the clause (a), the workers of the establishment shall choose amongst themselves:

Provided that, the employer may, deploy an electronic process for choosing representative of workers:

Provided further that there shall be adequate representation of women workers on the Safety Committee and such representation shall not be less than the proportion of women workers to the total number of workers employed.

Provided also that in case there is no recognised negotiating union or negotiating council and where any dispute arises regarding the choice of the representative to the Safety Committee, the matter may be referred to the concerned Regional Labour Commissioner (Central), who shall after hearing the parties decide the matter and the decision of Regional Labour Commissioner (Central) shall be final.

Provided also that the workers representatives at least one each from mining, electrical and mechanical discipline shall be nominated or elected as the case may be:

(c) the tenure of the members of the Safety Committee shall be three years.