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CAUSES, EXTENT AND REMEDIES FOR ACCIDENT

Causes for accidents are many and various. Broadly speaking, these causes may be classified into; HUMAN FAILURE: This leads to an accident when the employee ignores safety precautions and commits an unsafe act. MACHINE FAILURE: This refers to faulty mechanical or physical conditions leading to accidents.

THERE ARE FEW MORE CAUSES WHICH HAS FAILED TO REVEAL;


1. Lack of adequate inspection adds to the problem of industrial accidents. We have the Factories Act, the Boilers Act, the Indian Explosives Act, the Pesticides Act, the Water Act and the Air Act. All these contain elaborate provisions to ensure employee and public safety, and also punishment for noncompliance. Things usually go wrong in the implementation of the laws.

2. One of the ironies is that who should be screaming the loudest at the woeful lack of occupational safety at the workplace-trade union representatives-are ambivalent on the issue. The perception is that there is a tradeoff between the safety and jobs. In Indian circumstances, jobs get priority with the management while employee representatives prefer to lay down the disaster prevention aspects.

3. Most workers in our country believe that getting into an accident is the result of ones KARMA---a worker is injured because it was pre-ordained that he/she should be injured. The injury is a deserve effect of the cause whose roots lie in the previous birth. This belief together with the feeling that death is certain and no one can prevent it, often makes the worker ignore the safety measures.

4. Cracker manufacturing units, in the unorganised sector, are veritable death-traps. For example, in fireworks producing units in Sivaskasi, 32 people were roasted alive due to air explosion which took place on 19th September 1982. The explosions occur every year with sickening regularity in Sivaskasi, which is called the Japan of India, claiming precious lives, mostly of women and children. Haphazard production, total disregard to elementary safety precautions, child increasing reliance on child labour, official apathy and indifference are some of the factors causing avoidable deaths.

5.The private sector is guilty of negligence on the safety front. At times even elementary precautions are not adopted. Official reports on fires, that broke out in April 1983 at the cotton-ginning factory owned by the Kothari's in Adonis, Andhra Pradesh; and at the Fabien textiles in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra, in march 1997 note that the fire was mainly aggravated by the absence of adequate water-supply facilities in the former case.

6. In the name of the nature of the industry, workers are crushed to death. Child labour in diamond cutting industry is common. Workers are often locked from outside to prevent them from smuggling out diamonds. The latter custom killed 127 workers as they stampeded against bolted doors when the January quake struck polishing units in Ahmedabad. Because of their arduous calling, most workers, including children, end up with failed eyesight early in life.

7.Companies exploit mines and once the deposits are exhausted, they are abandoned. The ash lying around the mines causes enormous pollution to human beings, cattle and flowers and fauna. Diseases like TB, cancer and loss of eyesight are very common. Who will fill the mines? Who will protect the hapless victims living around the open mines?

8.As companies globalise, and projects especially, large ones involving greater complexitiesincrease, new risks emerge. Technological advancement has brought in threats of obsolescence, which itself is a big risk.

9.The boom in manufacturing in the Asian region, including India, has not been accompanied by an increase in focus on workplace safety. Manufacturing and mining processes are moving from industrialised countries to developing countries to feed the hunger for goods and commodities. Within India, many of these operations are carried out in the informal sector where workers do not have any protection.

10.Labour falls in the concurrent list in the constitution. Central Government enacts laws but the implementation is in the hands of respective state governments. The absence of a single safety law and changing regulations from state to state pose compliance problems.

11.Factories usually contain more workers than can be accommodated. Chemicals are not stored well away from work areas and workers are rarely informed about the hazardous nature of these substances. Factories lapses have earned India the dubious distinction of having the highest number of industrial accidents per 100,000 workers. In 2005, about 11 deaths occurred per 100,000 workers in India compared with two in US and 0.01 in Japan.

12. The presence of factory inspectors who are responsible for administering factory regulations is not felt much. For one thing, they are overburdened with the number of factories to be inspected by them. In addition, state governments have not filled up vacancies for a long time. Where officers are appointed, their offices are starved of basic amenities such as telephones, stationaries, and vehicles to carry out inspections.

13.Demand for iron has been yet another cause for accidents. Fed by export demand, about 30,000 iron-laden trucks made the journey from mines in Western Orissa to ports, hundreds of kilometres away, providing a ready-made alibi for employers. Accidents occur, workers die, but they are reported as road accidents.

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