Gujarat: Industrial accidents killed 989 in 5 years
The largest number of workers died inside industrial units in Surat district, 163, which alone accounts for 16.5 per cent of the deaths.
Between October 1, 2013 and September 30, 2018, a total of 989 workers died in 895 industrial units registered under the Factories Act, the state government told the Gujarat Assembly earlier this year in a written response to an unstarred question asked by Congress MLA from Danilimda Shailesh Parmar. (Representational Image)
In the past five years, as many as 989 workers died in accidents in industrial units in Gujarat. The districts of Surat, Ahmedabad and Bharuch, located on the “Golden Corridor” from Mehsana in the north to Vapi in the south, accounted for 42 per cent of the deaths of factory workers. A large number of these workers died in the industrial units of top companies such as Reliance Industries Limited, Tata Group, Essar Group, Nirma Limited and Welspun Group account.
Between October 1, 2013 and September 30, 2018, a total of 989 workers died in 895 industrial units registered under the Factories Act, the state government told the Gujarat Assembly earlier this year in a written response to an unstarred question asked by Congress MLA from Danilimda Shailesh Parmar. Gujarat has over 31,500 factories that employ more than 16.93 lakh workers.
The largest number of workers died inside industrial units in Surat district, 163, which alone accounts for 16.5 per cent of the deaths. Similarly, 133 workers died in Ahmedabad and 123 lost their lives in Bharuch.
Taking individual industrial units into account, companies like Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Nirma Limited, Welspun Group, Essar Group and Tata Group accounted for a higher number of worker deaths in their respective units. At least 18 workers died in RIL’s units in Ahmedabad, Jamnagar and Bharuch districts. In addition to those who died during the five-year period, three workers died when a fire broke out at Reliance’s rubber plant in Vadodara on November 29, 2018. A questionnaire sent to Reliance Industries seeking explanation on the accidents and the steps taken to ensure the safety of workers has been unanswered.
Thirteen workers died in Welspun Group’s units in Kutch district, and 13 others died in factories of Nirma Ltd at Bhavnagar and Devbhoomi Dwarka districts during the five-year period, while in a single year eight workers died in 2016-17 at the Adani Power plant at Mundra in Kutch, six workers died at the Maize Product unit in Ahmedabad in 2014-15 and six others died at the Vatva unit of Advance Dyestuff in 2017.
As many as 50 workers of the Alang-Sosiya ship breaking yard in Bhavnagar district died between 2013-2018. The number of casualties in Alang alone is nearly double that of the number of workers who died across Bhavnagar during this period, 27. “The accidents happening in Alang has certainly come down. In the past eight months, there has not been a single accident reported from the yard,” said Captain Sudhir Chaddha, port officer at Alang where the state’s nodal agency Gujarat Maritime Board is in charge of safety and security. Similarly, a majority of 88 workers who died in Valsad were employed in Vapi GIDC (Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation), an industrial cluster of the state government.
Over Rs 81.06 crore has been paid in compensation for these deaths, the state government told the Assembly in the written reply. “The compensation has been paid as per The Workmen Compensation Act,1923 and The Employment State Insurance Act, 1948,” it added.
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