Industries are in dire need of regular safety audits, monitoring mechanism

Visakhapatnam: Even as the government claims that safety audits of the industries are being carried out at periodical intervals, there seems to be no full stop for the industrial accidents that continue to recur, posing a life threat to the employees’ onsite.

Whether it is attributed to human negligence or absence of safety measures, mishaps at industrial units continue to happen in both Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli districts.

But, whenever an industrial accident happens, a committee will be constituted to probe into the reasons behind it. What does the committee report? What are the suggestions made to prevent such accidents from recurring? What is the plan of action in place to follow safety norms? What are the measures taken by the management and the authorities concerned post the incident? These aspects, however, remain unexposed.

For the past 10 years, a number of industrial accidents have happened in the undivided district of Visakhapatnam. The pharma companies such as Azico Biophore, Vishnu Chemicals, Glochem Industries, Vimal Drugs along with Sainor Life Sciences Private Limited and Sahithi Pharma Private Limited recorded over 25 deaths during such accidents.

The recurring accidents in the pharma sector once again underlines the disquieting situation where safety norms and audits go for a toss. Pharma cities have more or less become a death trap as employees die at regular intervals due to recurring accidents.

Post the incident, the government steps up efforts to ensure the injured get quality treatment and announce compensation to the deceased families. If the same degree of proactiveness is evinced in preventing industrial accidents, a number of lives would eventually be saved. According to Jana Sena Party Political Affairs Committee member Kona Tatarao, 62 people lost their lives and 200 were injured in 20 different industrial accidents that occurred in various parts of North Andhra in the past four years.

Meanwhile, CPM district secretary K Lokanadham demanded a detailed probe into the accident at Sahithi Pharma company in a time bound manner. However, in most committees formed to inquire into the industrial accidents involving government officials, he felt that facts continue to remain hidden. “Even earlier, the reports of the committees formed with the authorities concerned to probe into accidents that took place at Parawada did not see the light of day because they had teamed up with the management. Even in the case of Sahithi Pharma investigation, the involvement of the Joint Collector is giving way to several suspicions,” he opines.

Recalling the earlier committee investigations and doling out examples, the union leaders point out that the one constituted to look into the details of gas leak at Seeds Intimate Apparel India Pvt Limited continues to be a mystery.

In a move to prevent industrial accidents in Visakhapatnam, the district administration has come up with an offsite emergency plan involving a Mumbai-based company. In line with this, the Mumbai-based company is supposed to study the industries, their capabilities, risk management initiatives and security aspects. However, the progress made towards this direction is yet to be known.

As industrial accidents continue to recur in the undivided district of Visakhapatnam, experts emphasise on the need to expose the committee reports, take stringent action against erring managements, monitor safety aspects of the companies at frequent intervals and consider concrete measures to avoid accidents from happening.