Death Claim Under Workmen Compensation Act 1923 - PDF Download

Dear Seniors,
Please help me on below.
One of our employee met with an accident and died while working on our power project.
We have covered all our employees under Workmen Compensation policy against Employee compensation act 1923. Under this act we have submitted a claim against our WC policy with required & relevant documents, but Insurance officer is asking Form No. 24 with factory inspector's sign, which we have not intimated to factory inspector .
As per my information and knowledge factory act is not applicable to construction company.
Please guide me what should i do in this regards.
Regards,
Abhijeet Hire
901143686

Dear Abhijeet ji,
It seems your power project is not commissioned and it is still under construction. Therefore, Factory Act is not applicable to you. But to you BOCW Act 1996 is applicable and under this Act, you are liable to submit Report of Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences to the concern authority.

Factory Act is applicable for power plants. In my view it does not matter whether it is commissioned or not. I hope u have the valid Factory License in place.
Intimation in Form-24 is mandatory, within 24 hrs of the fatal accident, to the factory inspector. U have already defaulted on this. However, u may still submit F-24 to the Factory inspector. As it is medico-legal case, it is better to be late than never, as failing to do so, may further complicate the case for ur company.

Dear Dixon ji,
I appreciate your views. The defination of manufacturing process covers each and every activity. Manufacturing process means a process by which a form of any substance is change to another, as defined by SC Lodon, as told to me by someone. Then why not the construction activity is a manufacturing process and comes under the ambit of Factory Act?
Do you have any case in which project under construction is granted with Factory Licence? If yes, please share with me as well with this forum.
In the mean time I am drawing your kind attention to one Judgement by Orrisa HC 2010 on this subject. If I am not mistaken it is in the matter of Sterlite. The said Judgement is uploaded once by me but right now it is not traceable.

Dear Abhijeet,

Mr. Keshav is very correct. A power plant project under construction does not fall in the purview of Factories Act, until it is either commissioned or the power plant is an extension project of an already running plant in the same precinct. Where the Factories Act applies, BOCW Act does not apply and vice versa but the content of the act is almost similar and the authority for both the acts is the Inspector of Factories.

Secondly, as regards to the question of informing the Factories Inspector, it is stated that both Section 88 of Factories Act, 1948 and section 39 of BOCW Act, 1996 is talking about informing the authorities within stipulated time and in a prescribed form.

Now, the suggestion is to go ahead and inform the Inspector of Factories in the prescribed form and hand over the written forms to the Insurance department.

Hope, you might have done other formalities of informing the death to other authorities as well as handing over of necessary supporting documents to Insurance company.

P. Vathiraj

Dy. Manager (Personnel)

Abhijeet
please check attached pdf file of form 24 under The factories Act. Your insurance company will demand further for - salary & wages register, attendance roll, Form 13 u/d The Payment of wages Act duly certified by charter accountant & proof whether your company has paid half wages for an accident leave etc.
Start preparing all .
All the Best.

Abhijeet Hire,
Your One of employee met with an accident and died while working on our power project. --ok.
You have covered all our employees under Workmen Compensation policy against Employee compensation act 1923. ok
Under this act we have submitted a claim against our WC policy with required & relevant documents, ok
Factory covered under FACTORY ACT. IS NOT ISSUE. You have a postmortem report,police panchanama report of nearest police station and death certificate from grampanchayat, last wages register for that particular month month. It will sufficient for insurance claim.
RAMESH LAWANDE

Dear Abhijeet
As a matter of fact, before construction of any factory, the occupier has to obtain the approval from the factories Inspector as per Factories Act. Hence the Principal Employer has to insist the Contractor to submit the Accident/Incident Report in the specified format under BOCW Act to the Director Industrial Safety and Health / Factories Inspector who is given with additional responsibility (by the State Government concerned) to take care of BOCW Act.
Hope you may understood what and Why Mr. Keshav and Mr. Vathiraja has told to proceed with what the Workmen Compensation Commissioner said.

Dear Abhijeet
I fully agree with Mr.Korgaonkar views.
Ramnath

Dear Abhijeet
Since workman has died in the accident, you have to make report of fatal accident to the concerned Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation (now Cow Commissioner for Employees' Compensation in form E along with the copy of Insurance policy. The rest will be taken care of by the Commissioner. They will pass the order after necessary hearing against Insurance Company. The Insurance Company will have to pay the claim with interest from date of accident. Moreover the Insurance Company will pay the claim amount to the Commissioner, not to you or to the legal heirs of the deceased directly.