RSVKA Awardee: Late Er. Jaswant Singh Gill
Late Er. Jaswant Singh Gill was a senior officer in Coal India. He was a senior officer in Coal India who put his life in the gravest danger to rescue 65 miners when an underground coal mine in Raniganj, West Bengal, was flooded, using the Steel Capsule technique, thus creating history. An Asian Age report stated that four rescue teams were formed. A team proposed digging a parallel tunnel and connecting it with the mine.
It was also unsuccessful for another team to reach the mine through the route where water was seeping in. The team led by Gill created a steel capsule that can carry one person at a time. The capsule was to be inserted through the borewell hole.
Due to the borehole being connected at the exact location where the trapped miners had gathered, his study was flawless. He was awarded the Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak by then-president Ramaswamy Venkataraman two years later.
He received many accolades after that, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from Coal India. ‘Capsule Gill‘ is a biopic on Jaswant Singh Gill starring Indian-Canadian actor Akshay Kumar, which will be released in theatres in November 2023.
“You only get one life; you need to make it count…Everything happened so suddenly that no one had the time to think,” Gill told SBS Punjabi.
This is the video of the original rescue made on a Handycam by an amateur. Shared by Dr Sarpreet Singh Gill S/o Late Er. Jaswant Singh Gill
