Victims of ignorance
The Gujarat unit of
People's Union
of Civil Liberties
(PUCL) recently
filed a petition in
the High Court of
Gujarat against the
state government, the
commissioner of
industries and chief
factory inspector of
Gujarat alleging the
failure of chemical and
pharmaceutical industries in Ankleshwar
to disclose
information about
the dangers
related to the
production, transport
and storage of
hazardous chemicals.
The PUCL recently
brought out
a report which says
that almost none
of the "its in this
industrial town
- which is Asia's
largest chemical
and pharmaceutical
estate - has
my system of
informing either the
residents or the
workers about the
risks they face
every day. Accidents
occur frequently but
the factories
get away even though
the violations
are so obvious.
Workers have been
deliberately kept in
the dark about
the occupational
hazards so that
they do not associate accidents
with the material they handled.
The Factories Act
(section 41-B)
calls for compulsory
disclosure of
information by such
industries and
provides for
imprisonment for up
to seven years and a
penalty of up to
Rs 2 lakh for
non-compliance with
the law. Though some
units boast of
excellent on-site
emergency plans,
hardly any worker or
resident knows
what to do in case
of an emergency.
The Ankleshwar
estate employs
more than one lakh
people. It has no
green belt between
the industrial
and residential
areas where most of
the workers,
technicians,
scientists
and managers live.
Experts say that
30 per cent of the
diseases commonly
found in the estate,
such as chrome
ulcer, dermatitis,
burning sensations in the body
and common
cold, are related to
the patients' occupation.
Officials in
Vadodara and Bharuch factory
inspectorates
admitted that
awareness levels were
very low among
workers and the
public. They claimed
that even the
factory inspectorate
was unsure of
the emergency plans of the units.
12jav.net12jav.net
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