PANAJI
The blast which killed three workers at Zuari Agro Chemicals plant on Tuesday has brought into sharp focus not just the functioning and conduct of the Inspectorate of Factories and Boilers but also how seriously the State administration deals with such fatal industrial mishaps.
Inspectorate of Factories and Boilers, Labour Commissioner, Fire and Emergency Services, the police and eventually the district administration (district collectorate) are the multiple government agencies that have jurisdiction in the event of an industrial mishap. In most cases, officials manning each of them generally pass the buck, claiming overlap of jurisdiction.
Industrial law practitioners however dispute the argument that jurisdictions clash in the case of fatalities in industrial mishaps.
"The power and responsibility of the Inspectorate of Factories and Boilers to prosecute for breach of statutory safety stipulations whether the lapse is on the part of the worker or the manager/occupier is exclusive," says Gerald Fernandes, a former Indian Army Captain.
Fernandes, who is a Master of Labour Studies from Bombay University and practices at the Industrial Tribunal and Labour Courts in Goa also said that the criminal liability for death due to negligence is a distinct matter for prosecution separately under the Indian Penal Code by the Police authorities.
In case of past fatal industrial mishaps, however, senior government officials proffered the argument of clash of jurisdiction of multiple statutory authorities to explain the not so encouraging record of the State government pertaining to prosecution being launched and successfully concluded.
Sample this: In as many as 30-odd fatal mishaps reported in the first half of the last decade (2012 to 2022), criminal action against factories was initiated in just about half of them, that is between 2012 and 2017.
Government action in only 16 of the 30 fatal mishaps that occurred in factories in those five years ended up in criminal action. In one case the investigations were ongoing, according to information sourced from the records of the Goa legislative assembly.
There was also no mention of what nature of criminal action was taken nor if it led to any prosecution or court verdict pinning responsibility and/or conviction of those complicit or responsible for ignoring safety prescribed by the relevant laws.
One of Goa's worst construction industry disasters -- collapse of an under-construction block of Ruby Residency in Canacona killing 31 labourers in January 2014 -- happened in this very five-year period (2012-17).
Eight years later, the suspension and reinstatement of then Deputy Town Planner Prakash Bandodkar and Canacona Municipal Engineer Ajay Desai, is all the government has to show in terms of action taken.
Worse, a report of the VK Jha Commission on the Ruby Residency disaster is gathering dust in some government cellar and has not even been made public yet. Jha had examined 50 witnesses, including current Speaker Ramesh Tawardkar, then the Canacona MLA and minister.
Tawadkar, a serving minister then, owned a residence and an apartment which he used as an office in an adjacent building of the same project and was severely criticised for alleged complicity in part of the project obtaining completion and occupancy certificates.
On the industrial front, meanwhile, the Cuncolim Industrial Estate accounts for most of the fatal accidents in the recent past. An oxygen cylinder blast in a factory killed one worker in April last year and in October of the previous year (2020), ammonia leakage in a fish meal factory had claimed the life of a 22-year-old industrial worker.
Two other incidents that come to mind is the boiler blast at a cement blocks factory in Tuem which injured nine workers in 2019 and the massive fire at Sancoale which killed three persons and was triggered by a breach in the Naphta pipeline between the Mormugao port and the ZOITL storage tanks.
