​Foreseeable accidents: On the recent industrial accidents in India

Despite there having been a streak of industrial accidents in India of late, the notion that they are isolated and incidental persists. Within days of each other, four workers were killed in a ‘mishap’ in a septic tank in Surat while nine workers were killed by an explosion at a steel plant in Visakhapatnam . They appear to be different circumstances: one involved workers entering a confined space and succumbing to toxic gases; the other involved 150 tonnes of molten steel and a violent blast. Yet, industry has known of these risks and had developed preventive measures decades ago. In the Surat incident, four workers entered the tank and were overcome by toxic fumes. The circumstances resemble a well-known pattern in fatalities in confined spaces, where the first victims are often followed by would-be rescuers who enter without protection. There have been deaths in similar circumstances in Surat’s industrial sector in recent years. The working area must be mechanically ventilated and have rescue personnel on standby while the workers must have breathing apparatuses, harnesses and retrieval lines, and clear lines of communication. Unprotected entry must be strictly prohibited. Septic tank deaths and deaths due to manual scavenging are in fact rarely accidents in the sense of unforeseeable events, but failures of basic safety management, and the recurrence of such incidents speaks to the persistence of that failure. Likewise, while steelmaking is intrinsically more dangerous because it combines extreme temperatures, pressurised gases, heavy equipment, and enormous stores of heat energy, industry still knows the hazards it poses, and further that even relatively small process failures can result in multiple casualties. Both incidents, and the patterns they extend, are reminders of persistent safety failures in many parts of Indian industry. In Visakhapatnam, trade unions and former employees have alleged that the plant had reduced staffing, heavier workloads, ageing equipment, deferred maintenance, and an increasing dependence on contractual labour. Some also linked these trends to the difficulties the plant faced following the Centre’s divestment plans and the resulting constraints on investments. However true any of these factors are, they confirm that a major industrial accident is almost always due to the accumulation of organisational weaknesses. In fact, contract labour is central to understanding both incidents. Occupational safety research has consistently found that contracted workers face higher risks because they may receive less training and operate within systems with fragmented accountability. The incidents have also occurred during the gradual and uneven implementation of India’s new occupational safety framework — and highlight the invisible fact that the country’s industries remain anchored by old problems of manpower shortage, caste- and class-based exposure to hazardous labour, and a ‘cost over safety’ mindset in financially stressed units.