INDIA has witnessed a number of industrial accidents recently -- toxic gas leak at LG Polymers factory in Visakhapatnam, boiler explosion at Yashashvi Rasayan Private Limited in Gujarat’s Dahej, two boiler explosions in Tamil Nadu, toxic gas leak at a paper mill in Chhattisgarh, and boiler explosion at a Lucknow chemical factory. In addition, the coal mining sector has reported some accidents. These accidents have killed or injured many workers and exposed communities to toxic chemicals.

May 7 was the most tragic with a series of industrial accidents claiming several lives and injuring scores. In early hours of the day, the gas leak at LG Polymers plant claimed 11 lives and left over a hundred sick. On the same day, a boiler explosion at unit six of Neyveli Thermal Power Plant killed five employees, seven workers fell ill after inhaling poisonous gas at Shakti Paper Mills in Chhattisgarh’s Tetla village, and a fire broke out at a pharmaceutical packaging factory in the Satpur area near Nashik.

The styrene gas leak in Visakhapatnam took place as LG Polymers employees were preparing the plant for reopening after a 40-day nationwide coronavirus-induced lockdown. The gas quickly spread in the atmosphere over a radius of about five km and formed a thick fog affecting visibility. Styrene monomer is normally in a liquid state and is safe below a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. According to initial reports, a malfunction in the refrigeration unit led to a temperature increase beyond the safety level, resulting in the chemical converting to gas and leaking into the atmosphere. Another report by the “Down to Earth”, stated that lack of maintenance, defunct volatile organic compound detection system and management negligence may have caused this accident.

Another boiler blast at Neyveli Lignite Corporation’s power plant on July 1 claimed 15 lives. It was the fifth such accident at the plant in the recent past. Most of the workers who died in the May and July explosions at NLC power plant are contract workers – mostly people hailing from historically oppressed communities. The boiler explosion at the Dahej plant in Gujarat killed at least eight people and injured about 40. Nine people died and 15 others suffered injuries in a major fire at Telangana State Power Generation Corporation Limited (TS Genco) hydel power plant located in Srisailam, Nagarkurnool district.

MISMANAGEMENT
Misplaced management priorities are as much to blame as technical lapses. Replacing regular workers with contract workers in sensitive operations such as boiler maintenance, shutdown and start-up is a recipe for disaster. All these accidents reveal a pattern of failures. If the causes are not addressed the possibility of a major catastrophe on the scale of the 1984 Bhopal disaster cannot be ruled out. It is also significant to note that a series of accidents occurred as factories were reopening after the lockdown. As India returned to work after the Covid-19 lockdown, there has been at least one industrial accident every two days, killing and maiming workers, polluting the surroundings with long-term health and environmental implications.

It is also important to note that, in the case of the LG Polymers gas leak, the company had been operating without obtaining the required environmental clearances from the union environment ministry for over two decades. In spite of this, the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board had granted permission for the unit to undergo expansion in 2019. The issue becomes even more pertinent particularly within the context of the new draft Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2020 that environmentalists and activists have harshly criticised.

DRAFT EIA NOTIFICATION

The purpose of the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is to identify and weigh the risks associated with a particular project, and most importantly, ascertain whether an industrial project has the capacity to endanger human life, and damage the fragile ecology of its surroundings. However, the new norms and regulations set out in the latest draft notification appear to weaken the scope of regulation and accountability required, while watering down the consultative role of the public in the approval process. Crucially, the modifications in the latest draft, apart from allowing companies that were operating illegally to obtain post-facto clearance, state that the government will only take cognizance of reports undertaken by its own authorities as well as those of the violator, with reports filed by independent consultants not entertained. This is very well amount to a conflict of interest that would see companies under-report the risk associated with particular projects.

SHAM INQUIRIES 

Empty rituals follow every industrial disaster. Everybody express regret and state governments announce compensation packages. Committees are constituted to enquire into the accident. Production is suspended for a few hours or days at the errant unit depending on how many died, how many were injured and how big a splash it made in the media. The “expert” committees are loaded with engineers (without workers’ representatives), who almost never link the root cause with national policy decisions on workers’ safety or environment, to institutional lapses, management decisions or the lack of accountability of regulators and offenders. It is relevant to recall that last year also, a few industrial incidents took place such as an explosion at a chemical factory in Maharashtra, a massive fire at the ONGC plant at Bombay High and blasts in NTPC Rae Bareli and in Delhi’s Bawana industrial area. These showed that India’s industrial accidents preventive measures and the safety inspection systems are inadequate and ineffective in ensuring the workers’ safety.

Even if it is just the industrial accidental tragedy with the significant toll that makes the headlines, its actual impact for making comprehensive occupational health and safety legislation seems to be a far-off prospect. So, in order to minimise the recurring costs, employers are putting the workers’ lives to risk by allowing workers to work in hazardous conditions. Therefore, on one hand employers are reluctant to incur preventive maintenance costs to avoid additional overhead and on the other, the Indian labour administration is under tremendous pressure from the government’s pro-employer policies that are offering leeway to employers from regulatory controls.

WORKERS’ SAFETY

Any forensic analysis of a Neyveli disaster will be incomplete without examining the role of the deputy director of boilers. All industrial boilers are subject to regulation by the directorate of boilers set up under the Indian Boilers Act, 1923. Technically qualified engineering staffers are paid government salaries to inspect each boiler annually and certify it safe for operation. Major mishaps happen only if tell-tale mishaps of a minor nature are ignored when they occur. The fateful boiler blast of May 7 ought to have prompted a complete audit of not just the errant boiler but all other equipment on site. The repeat mishap of July 2020 highlights how the boilers directorate too, like all other labour or environmental safety regulators in India, is merely a lucrative rubberstamp technocracy.

PRO-CORPORATE LABOUR CODE

India’s efforts in encouraging occupational and industrial safety remain frail. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, in the de jure spirit obliges employers to provide for a risk-free workplace and instruct employees on safety protocol. It further assumes that all employers will self-enforce such measures without any deterrence from enforcement authorities. Existing evidence shows that if we allow self-enforcement of labour laws through nudging the behavior of the employers, then employers would likely engage in an opportunistic rent-seeking behaviour to maximize their own self-interests of profit. Hence, the inherent behavioural altruism on the part of employers offers less credence in safeguarding the safety and rights of workers. Second, the labour inspectorate is entrusted with the power to inquire into accidents and conduct surprise on-the-spot inspections and to frame penalties -- both civil and criminal -- on employers in case of non-adherence. However, in the code, all these statutory powers of labour and factory administration have been curtailed severely. Even the district magistrate/collector’s powers as an inspector has been taken away in the code. It will be inspector-cum-facilitators who initiate the legal proceedings but will not able to frame criminal penalties on employers.

Instead of protecting the workers, it is now redefined to protect the interest of employers. The code also restricts the appeal of a person aggrieved due to industrial accidents or industries or any employment-related causes thereof to file a writ petition before the relevant high court. This may lead to the denial of access to justice to challenge issues before a lower court. As a result, there will be longer pendency of labour disputes and delayed justice to the aggrieved workers.

BUSINESS AT THE COST OF WORKERS

India’s jump from 130th (2016) to 63rd (2019) rank in the Ease of Doing Business (EDB) is boasted across all industries. Every year, whenever India bags a higher rank on EDB, our global ranking point estimate slips towards the bottom quartile in all global parameters such as hunger, peace, slavery, worst formed labour and workers’ rights indexes on the lowest scale.

Not all laws are equal. Which laws are enforced and which are not reflects the value systems underlying a jurisdiction. In India, laws to protect the weak are weak and the laws to protect the poor are poorly enforced. The law outlawing manual scavenging is a case in point. The law exists on paper; but manual scavengers continue to be employed by every local body in the country. News about their horrific deaths in cesspools, septic tanks and sewer manholes is routinely reported with no effect, even as the country celebrates its space conquests with rockets to the moon and Mars.