Shivkasi Fire Tragedy: How Can We Improve Workplace Safety to Prevent Such Disasters?

Shivkasi Fire Mishap: A Call for Enhanced Safety Systems

Go through the news on the Shivkasi Fire Mishap on 05.09.2012. This incident is truly an eye-opener for the necessity of having safety systems in place to control accidents in any organization. Let's do our best to ensure a safe working environment within our areas of control.

Regards

Sharing as received through mail from Mr. Jagdish Patel (Participating actively in our forum under the name PTRC). Sir, thanks for giving consent to upload on your behalf.

Dear all, I wrote a letter to the Indian Express which was not published. You may like to go through it.

Please see attached.

Regards,
Jagdish

The way industries (Fireworks, Match Factories, and Printing Units) in Sivakasi work is entirely different from the rest of the country. The unit owner sets up the unit with all infrastructure. There are contractors who have orders in hand, and they will approach this unit owner for the lease of the unit for a few days/weeks, based on the volume. The unit owner lets the unit for lease for an agreed price based on the duration.

The contractor then looks for subcontractors who have expertise in jobs and have a workforce ready with them. These subcontractors then assemble the workforce again on a contract basis and start production.

If you look closely, the worker works only for the subcontractor on a daily or weekly basis. Hence, no strings attached like ESI, PF, etc. The contractor has no binding on the labor force, similarly, the unit owner has no direct link with the labor force.

As long as things go smoothly, this arrangement works fine. But when things boil over like this fire mishap, then everyone is on the run. The unit owner was hiding for some time and was caught yesterday.

The ironical part of this is that the license for the unit was canceled on 4th September, and the accident happened on 5th September.

Sheer exploitation of LAW in all aspects.

Regards,
Veeyar.

Thank you for providing the details of working at Shivkashi. The information you have shared is okay. However, the industry owner must adhere to all legal obligations. Professionals working in the safety field have a social responsibility to make the workers aware of the hazards and educate them on the essential facilities required in a factory. Local press can also contribute to raising awareness and providing training. By implementing these measures, we can definitely prevent such mishaps.

Thanks & Regards,
Sudhir

We hope that discussions like this are being seen by the enforcing authorities and other concerned government officials in Tamil Nadu. They should focus on imparting their duties effectively to avoid the occurrences of such disasters in our country.

Regards