Countless lives of workers are lost or irreversibly altered due to inadequate occupational safety measures and hazardous working conditions in factories, construction sites, fire-cracker manufacturing units, mines or while cleaning sewage. In three fatal accidents at workplaces in Gujarat, at least 15 workers have reportedly died and many injured so far in the month of October this year.
Groundxero | October 28, 2024
With economic growth and industrial progress, India has witnessed an unfortunate consequence: a disturbing rise in fatal accidents at workplaces. Industrial accidents kill and permanently disable thousands every year. In three fatal accidents at workplaces in Gujarat, at least 15 workers have reportedly died and many injured so far in the month of October this year.
Two workers were killed, seven hospitalised after inhaling toxic fumes in a textile factory in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad on last Sunday (20 October). The incident took place at Devi Synthetics, a textile factory in Narol industrial area of the city. A preliminary investigation revealed that spent acid, used in the printing and dyeing industry, leaked while being transferred into a tank when the workers nearby were suffocated. The condition of four workers was reported to be critical and they were being treated in the ICU of a hospital.
Earlier, on 12 Oct 2024 (Saturday), nine workers died after a wall collapsed at a private construction site in Gujarat. The fatal accident happened at Jasalpur village of Kadi town in Gujarat’s Mehsana district when the labourers were digging a 16-foot-deep pit for an underground tank at the site. Around 9-10 workers were trapped after the wall collapsed and the soil caved in. Only a 19-year-old labourer was rescued alive, while the others died. All the deceased workers were in the age group of 20-30 years, and were identified as Arvind Samubhai Bhuriya, Raju Shankar Meda, Sailesh Dita Bhabhor, Mukesh Mansang Kamal, Ganga Kamlesh Katara, Jagannath Ramesh Bariya and Mahendra Ramesh Bariya (two brothers), as well as a couple Ashish Ninama and Ayushi Ashish Ninama.
In yet another deadly industrial mishap in the state, on 16 Oct (Wednesday), five workers including a supervisor lost their lives due to exposure to toxic fumes while cleaning a chemical tank at Emami Agro Tech Company in Kandla. Among the deceased, four workers were migrant labourers. The victims were identified as Sidharth Tiwari, Ajmat Khan, Ashish Gupta, Ashish Kumar, and Sanjay Thakur.
Notably, in February this year, during a Legislative Assembly session, Congress MLA Arjun Modhwadia raised concerns about worker fatalities in industrial accidents in the state. In response, Industries Minister Balwant Singh Rajput revealed that a total of 714 workers had lost their lives in such incidents between 2021 and February 2024 in Gujarat. Earlier, in September 2023, in response to a question by Jignesh Mevani in the state assembly, the government had informed that around 700 workers died and 213 sustained injuries in the 587 industrial accidents that took place across the state during 2020-23.
The Union labour minister told Parliament in 2021 that at least 6,500 workers had died1 while working in factories, ports, mines and construction sites in five years. Out of total industrial casualties, 5629 were reported in factory settings between 2014 and 2018, while 549 were reported from mines, 74 at ports and 237 died at construction sites in central government jurisdiction.
These data are only from the registered factories, although about 90% of workers in India are employed in the informal sector. Workers in small, unregistered factories are often the most affected by industrial accidents. Labour activists complain that these figures put up by the government do not represent the actual casualty figure as many accidents and deaths are not reported, or are termed as injuries, if the person dies after two weeks of the accident; hence the actual numbers of fatalities is much higher. There is no official national data on workers left disabled by industrial accidents. There is only one safety inspector for every 500 factories, with approximately half of the positions for Safety Inspectors, Medical Inspectors, Hygiene Inspectors, and Chemical Inspectors remaining unfilled. This lack of personnel not only makes adequate data collecting difficult, but also makes proper inspections of workplaces impossible.
As a consequence, countless lives of workers are lost or irreversibly altered due to inadequate occupational safety measures and hazardous working conditions, more so in what is called the informal or unorganised sector, especially in factories, construction sites, fire-cracker manufacturing units, mines or while cleaning sewage. Most of these workers are migrant contractual workers or daily wagers, who are deprived of social security and other benefits.
Monetary compensation to the family members is paid in some cases. Since, in most cases there is no follow-up news report, it is difficult to ascertain what happened to the injured, whether all the families of the deceased workers received compensation or not and what action was taken by the administration against owners, who flouted safety rules and regulations.
Widespread use of unskilled low-paid contract labourers, lack of safety measures and inability and reluctance of the authorities to fix responsibility of the employers are some factors contributing to the spurt in accidents. Since most of the victims are usually poor, dalits or Muslims, non-unionized and employed as contractual labour, there is little pressure on the owner and government, or interest of the media and civil society to even take note, let alone raise their voices to ensure that occupational safety at workplaces are regulated and overseen. The fact is most media houses no longer have a labour beat. Only if the death toll is too high or the damage caused is considerable, the incidents make it to the front page headline. Otherwise, workers are in news only when they spontaneously explode in violent protest or go on strike to press for their demands, yet their protests are framed in terms of lawlessness, disruptive activities by workers’ unions or their adverse impact on production and the economy.
While as many as 3,331 deaths of workers were recorded between 2018 and 2020; only 14 people were imprisoned for offences under the Factories Act, 1948, during the same period. Recurring events of fatal accident or ‘industrial killing’ come with manifold threat to labour rights. It clashes with the workers’ right to life and hence calls for retributive punishment which means that the punishment should be in proportionate to the wrong committed. But in most cases, the ‘killings’ are termed an ‘accidents’ and compensatory justice is advocated for the same. The government announces lump-sum compensation to the families of the deceased or injured, shifting focus away from gross negligence and accountability of the owner/management.
Compensatory justice can neither suffice nor be proportionate to the wrong committed in most cases. Therefore, where violation of safety regulations by the owner/management is well established as the cause of a fatal accident, both criminal punishment to the perpetrator and compensation to the victims/families should be awarded to mitigate the irreparable loss suffered by the deceased or injured worker’s family.
Trade union activists and labour-law experts argue that the new law is even less stringent and sets the compliance bar on workers’ safety even lower than the Factories Act, 1948, which currently covers labour welfare and safety.
Trade union activists and labour-law experts argue that the new labour codes to be introduced soon are even less stringent and set the compliance bar on workers’ safety even lower than the Factories Act, 1948, which currently covers labour welfare and safety. In the new labour codes, the definition of “factory” has been changed from 10 or more to 20 or more workers for establishments using electric power. It excludes establishments with less than 20 workers. According to the 2016 Economic Census, just 1.66% of total non-agricultural establishments, only about 2% in manufacturing and 1.25% in the construction industry employed 10 or more workers. Hence, the new threshold will leave majority of the establishments out of the ambit of the new occupational safety and health code and legal purview of safety requirements.
While currently, labour officers are responsible for inspecting and ensuring the implementation of safety rules, their role will henceforth change to that of mediators under the new codes. Labour Commissioners and Labour Inspectors will be replaced with ‘Facilitators’, who will not have suo motu powers to inspect companies for labour law violations. In case of accidents, the Facilitators will have to inform the management before launching an enquiry, and the investigation report cannot be made public.
So the new code will make it even easier for factory owners, employers and management to get away with overlooking and ignoring workers’ safety and social security. The injured workers and the families of the deceased will have no other option but to blame their fate, terming what are essentially ‘industrial killings’ as ‘accidents’, and workers’ safety will henceforth be nobody’s responsibility.