Can one commit mass murder and then simply walk away terming the incident an “accident”, an “act of nature” or an “unavoidable misfortune”? I will term whatever happened on September 11 in Karachi (and in Lahore, as well) a mass murder committed by all those made responsible by law to ensure safe working conditions in factories.
Obviously, these were not isolated incidents. Even though an accident of this magnitude has not taken place before, but accidents in factories in Pakistan are a dime a dozen. These factories are murder traps only to make money. Industrial labor standards and city government’s bylaws demand factory design/layout to take care of emergency exits, alternate fire exits in multi-storey buildings, smoke and fire detection systems, fire extinguishers and water sprinklers, industrial grade electric wiring equipped with devices to prevent short circuits.
The Karachi inferno, which will be remembered as the worst industrial disaster in Pakistan’s history, is neither the first one nor will it be the last one. Only the number of victims may vary in future disasters; the reasons for the fire erupting will be the usual ones consisting of negligence and ineptitude: lack of boilers inspections, electric short circuit, inappropriate storage of explosives and chemicals, temporary wiring to connect the standby generators. In some cases, even the factory may not exist as an industrial unit or may not have an approved building map and lease plans.
If I can get away by paying a 100-rupee bribe to the traffic police, the factory owner can also continue to operate by paying appropriate bribes to boiler inspectors, civil defense authorities, building control, labor welfare and anyone else concerned with an official inspection tag.
Will we ever spare some of the amount we spend on weapons and useless projects and paraphernalia on some real projects?
This is a bad luck of pakistanies that all our consultants are not fulfilling their duties, only a small quantity of bribe can do anything, here is an industrial state named industrial state gadoon amazai which was containing on nearly about 500 hundred industries but due to govt policies and huge taxes only one fourth industry is in working position, despite of one fourth all industrial machinery have been shifted to another industrial state due to bribes taken by SDA ( sarhad development authority). So the unemployed labours became a burden over the despite industry so they started cruelties over the labours now there is no rules and regulations about duty, salary in the industrial state. No safety system, medical facilities, first aid facilities accommodation allowances or bonus system, all the industry keep the labours on dailyveges basis. But action could be taken against the industrialists because they are giving bribes to the officials Coming for checking.
The concerns raised are valid, society needs to appreciate the fact that most accidents are caused and accordingly most accidents can be avoided. It is disturbing to learn that a factory set-up with over 2000 workers lucked basic safety arrangements like fire alarms and emergency exits. Governments all over the world need to arise and pronounce themselves on the need to deliberately enforce Safety Management best practices.
Comments are closed.