A day after an industrial building collapsed in Jalandhar killing eight persons,Punjab government announced that special safety audits would be conducted in all industrial units in the state to prevent such mishaps. Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal announced this after visiting the Focal Point area where the four-storey building of Shital Fabrics collapsed late on Sunday night. The safety audit would be conducted by industries and local government departments to ascertain both latent and patent defects in industrial buildings, Badal told reporters,adding that safety audits would be a regular feature to ensure security of the people and worthiness of buildings. This would be the first time that Punjab would conduct a safety audit. As per the rules,only the hazardous industries have to give a safety report before they commence their operations while an annual safety inspection of only 60 major hazardous industries is carried out in the state. The government might do the safety audit through its departments or hire an agency. There are 40 focal points and nearly 2.5 lakh industrial units big in the state,Principal Secretary (Industries) AR Talwar,said. Interestingly,it is the labour department and not the industries department that inspects the industrial units and clears their building plans. As per the Punjab Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards (Amendment) Rules,2002, the factory owner shall not undertake any industrial activity unless he has prepared a safely report and has sent a copy to the Chief Inspector Factories at least 90 days before commencing the activity in the unit. The owners of both the new and existing industries have to get a safety audit done by competent agency to be accredited by a board to be constituted by the Union Ministry of Labour. Such auditing should be carried out internally once a year by a team of suitable plant personnel and externally once every two years by a competent agency. The factory owner shall send the report to the Chief Inspector with respect to the implementation of recommendations with 30 days of the audit.
