NEW DELHI: Referring to the recent incidents of death of workers in industrial accidents in Delhi, the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), said in a press statement on Tuesday said that the Delhi Government's Labour Department had become lax in enforcing laws related to industrial safety. It has also released a fact-finding report on the death of 12 workers on December 7, 2005 as a result of a fire at Groversons Apparels Private Limited, a garment-manufacturing unit in Vishwas Nagar in Delhi.

In its report, the organisation alleged the fire in Vishwas Nagar was the result of the neglect of basic rules of occupational safety by the management. The owner of the manufacturing unit had violated all the provisions relating to the protection against fire and for worker's safety prescribed under the Factories Act, 1948, it alleged. It said that the factory was housed in a building that was primarily built for residential purposes without provisions for the safety and protection of workers. The management was careless about stocking inflammable material within the factory premises and had never replaced fire extinguishers. There were no provisions for easy entry and exit in case of a fire. Contract workers in small and medium factories are not usually unionised making it almost impossible for individual workers to enforce issues of workers' safety.

Emphasising that the compensation paid by the government to those affected by the Vishwas Nagar fire was inadequate; PUDR has demanded that the management of Groversons fully compensate the kin of those who died and those who were seriously injured in the incident. It has demanded complete reimbursement of medical expenses of those affected by the incident, and asked that one member of each family of the deceased be given a job in Groversons.

PUDR has demanded that the government initiate legal proceedings against the management for the violation of basic norms relating to occupational health and safety.

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