Days after five workers died cleaning a sewage treatment plant (STP) in Moti Nagar’s DLF Capital Greens, a Delhi government inquiry has flagged multiple violations, including the fact that the facility was running without a mandatory licence and registration. The inquiry report, signed by Additional Labour Commissioner K R Verma, states that the licence of one of the sub-contractors, Crest Commercial Projects, had expired in March and that the workers were sent inside the STP without “personal protection equipment”. The labour department has served notices to the two sub-contractors — Unnati, which was in charge of the STP, and the housekeeping firm Crest, as well as JLL, the principal contractor of DLF, under the Contract Labour (R&A) Act, 1970, and Minimum Wages Act, 1948. They have been asked to respond by September 19, following which “necessary action, including prosecution, would be initiated”. The department’s Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health also probed the matter and wrote to the government that the premises where the deaths took place is considered a “factory” under the Factories Act, 1948, and Delhi Factories Rules, 1950. “It was found running without registration and grant of licence,” the report states. The Act defines “factory” to be a place where 10 or more people are working and in any part of which a manufacturing process, including pumping oil, water, sewage or any other substance, is being carried out. A day after the incident on September 9, a senior labour department official had claimed that the premises could not be considered a factory, so the department did not have much of a role to play in its functioning. Shivaji Marg Maintenance Services Ltd, the overall in-charge of the STP, allowed workers to enter the STP without any safety equipment, the report adds.
