Dhanbad: Over 1,000 workers of the underground Moonidih colliery of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) will not have to arduously move from one end of the mine to another with heavy machines in hand anymore.

Union coal secretary Inder Jit Singh on Friday inaugurated a suspended monorail system, installed at the colliery for Rs 120 crore, to facilitate efficient movement of the miners.

Senior BCCL officials, including chairman and managing director Ajay Kumar Singh and general manager of Moonidih colliery G.S. Mahapatra, were also present at the event.

"The system will make the movement of miners, who work in difficult conditions inside the mine, convenient. We will adopt more advanced technologies for the convenience of our workers in the future and extend this facility to other mines as well," the coal secretary told the media.

He said the new system would also ensure faster movement of machines.

"The 480-metre monorail will extract a better output from the miners because they will not feel fatigued anymore," mechanical engineer of Indu Projects, a private firm engaged in mining coal at the colliery on BCCL's behalf, said.

He said it was a rapid, safe and comfortable way for the workers to negotiate horizontal and vertical curves in underground mines.

"Two cabins of the monorail can carry 32 workers and a weight of 36 tonnes at a time," Kumar added.