Dear Friends,
It was way back in the year 1997 when I was posted at Goa, I felt the need of a Website of DGMS. At that time Internet in India was in its infancy. With the help of the Safety and Productivity Council of Goa and Sindhudurg, I managed to pay and get an internet account. Once I had an internet account I began browsing the net and learning about the internet and vast resources and information it opened up for me.
Soon I realised that it was possible to create and launch a website free of cost through Geocities - a project of Yahoo.com. I registered with them as minsafety and began designing and hosting a website at http://www.geocities.com/minsafety. That evening, I asked a friend in Goa to confirm if he is able to see the website. I had a sense of great enjoyment, pleasure and relief when he confirmed that he is indeed able to see the website on his home computer. The remnants of this website can still be seen through Web Archive Project where any website that existed in past can be still seen through their time machine. I give below a link so that members can have a feel of history.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010424064824/http://www.geocities.com/minsafety/
The website soon came on search results while searching the net through Yahoo which was the best search engine at that time. People all across the world began noticing DGMS website and learn about mine safety scene in India.
An other interesting thing happened soon. A generous and well-meaning person Mr. Ajeet Kumar R Peraty, a mining engineering graduate from India and settled in USA saw the website and sent an email offering me to register a domain name as dgms.net and help me host it so that DGMS could have a proper website through its own domain name and not depend on Geocities. Initially, I was a bit sceptical and asked him the details of his offer. To my amazement, he was totally transparent and well-meaning and I accepted his offer. He immediately paid in dollars and registered the domain in USA along with hosting service. At that time it was impossible to pay for such a service from India and in any case I could afford no money either to pay for all this. This gentleman continued to pay for domain name annual fee till the year 2004 when I managed to track him again and sent an email saying that it is now possible for us to pay for it in India and could he please transfer the name and control to me so that I can pay for it. He immediately responded with all that I asked him and did the needful. Since then I began paying and managing for domain name and for the hosting service.
The website of Geocities continued as well but then Yahoo decided to pull the plug on it, it died. Luckily, I had already moved to dgms.net and that is how DGMS website could continue without interruption - Thanks to a single well-meaning and generous Indian mining engineer in USA. I never had an occasion to talk to him or meet him. If any of you know more about him, I will be happy to have an update so that we can thank him personally.
Slowly, a realisation came in DGMS as well to have a website that was official and several attemps were made by them in this direction through 3rd Party designers and hosting service providers - with commercial interests which made them to register different domain names for DGMS where the ownership of domain was in the name of Web Desiging Company and not DGMS. This often resulted in loosing the domain name whenever DGMS wanted to change the Service Provider. This continues to be the case even now. However, while still in service, I contacted NIC and through the help and cooperation of the then DGMS Mr. Bhaskar Bhattacharya and the Ministry, we managed to register proper government domain dgms.gov.in for the DGMS. The website was also hosted on this domain intermittently because of operational mangement issues in DGMS, there being no dedicated person to manage its content.
Be that as it may, I felt that it is worthwhile to continue with DGMS.NET working as un-official website and perhaps make it more wide based and provide information not only about mine safety and DGMS but about Mining in India at large.
The history of DGMS Mailing List is equally interesting but I must leave it for another day to share with members.
Lastly, Let me acknowledgement the generous financial contribution made by some members when I sent out an SOS recently. This will help me to keep the website going for the time being.
1. Mr. M.M. Sharma, Ex. DGMS Rs. 4800/-
2. Mr. P. Dharmarao, Ex. DDG, DGMS Rs. 1000/-
3. Mr. Rathin Biswas Rs. 1000/-
This amount is enough for the time being and we do not need any more contribution as of now.website at http://www.dgms.net will stay alive.
Thank you one and all your support and help.
WebMaster
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Directorate General of Mines Safety, Ministry of Labour & Employment, Govt. of India
Websites: http://www.dgms.net and http://www.dgms.gov.in
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