Notwithstanding recording of at least one nonfatal injury every day and a fatal injury every third day, for factories, safety comes second to cost cutting priority in Odisha. The priority of the State Government too seems less enthusing in this regard as the factories here disregard the mandatory provision under the Indian Factories Act 1948 of appointing safety officers (SO) quite openly.
The result is in a year (13-14) the office of Chief Factory Inspector registers around 600 work-related injuries in the factories in the State. Given the diabolic statistics, what is at stake is safety of over 70,000 workers eking a livelihood in over 380 hazardous units and over 5,000-6,000 workers in around 50-60 large units here.
As per Government’s official record, over one-fifth of the factories in the State are yet to declare a safety policy as mandated under the Factories Act, 1948. Though the act mandates appointment of SO in hazardous units and also units employing 1,000 workers, over two per cent factories till date have not appointed a single SO and where appointed vacancies to the tune of over 4 per cent mars the safety scenario in factories.
Sample this. There are around 170 safety officers for over 380-odd hazardous and over 50 large units. But the IlO norm mandates a part-time SO for workers below 50, one for up to 200 and 3or 4 for 300 to over 1,000 respectively. As Odisha has around 2,536 reporting industries in the manufacturing sector, a rough estimate puts the minimum requirement of safety officers in the factories at around 350-500.
But the factory owners apparently get a long rope as the Government has not appointed the required number of factory inspectors. The official data available shows a high of around 16 per cent shortfall in manpower at the inspection-level. The fallout then is: Around one-fifth of the factories here remain uninspected every year. More worrisome is the State Government has not deemed it fit to appoint chemical and hygiene inspectors, suggests the data.
Moreover, penalising action for the erring factories is also not forthcoming. Official data available with the chief factory inspector reveals that the pending cases were around 920 in 2002 and last year the number has risen past 1,200. The Government could prosecute only around 75-87 violation cases every year. Conviction also seems very poor as only 10 per cent cases see punishment. Imprisonment is also very rare in the State unlike others. Chhattisgarh, on the other hand, has a higher conviction rate of around 80 per cent, more imprisonment and fewer pending cases.