Death of Shri Atar Singh

• (As noted on 30th July): You can find an analysis done by Citizens' Forum on the reports of committees constituted by the institute to enquire into accidents. (The relevant report here is this one.)

• 19-Dec-2012 An email circulated by the DIrector, IITK
  apprising of the steps taken by the institute in wake of recent deaths.

  • Nov 21, 2012 Another death has taken place on a construction site. This has resulted in some reaction from the community, which is being documented on the said page.

• Oct 31, 2012 An email send by Citizen's Forum to the concerned alumni.

• Oct 25, 2012 A letter send by Citizen's Forum to the Alumni Association.

• Oct 22, 2012 A report by Hamara Manch dated 22nd October 2012 : The text is appended below, but the pdf above also contains photographs and relevant links.

• Oct 19, 2012 A mail circulated by Director's office.

• Oct 19, 2012 Office Order: Institution of one man enquiry committee

Another Death at Work in IIT Kanpur

A Report by Hamara Manch

    On 18th October 2012 another worker died of a fall from a high rise under construction building in the campus. Atar Singh, a 42 year old plumber and father of two (19 and 14 years old respectively), fell from the 3rd floor to the 1st floor of the construction site of the new Hall of Residence for Girls at about 9:30 am and suffered a head injury. The worker was first taken to the Health Centre of the Institute and then to the Hallet Hospital, the main public hospital in the city. By evening he was declared dead. Hamara Manch has put together this report after talking to  several workers and students who visited the site of the accident.

The Incident

Apparently, the late Atar Singh was trying to shift a pipe from one floor to another while standing on the edge of a cut-out that was without railing and suddenly slipped and fell down. A worker who reached the site at around 10.00 am stated that he saw the deceased being taken to the hospital; he noticed mild bleeding from the nose and the victim was being provided some sort of a massage. Eyewitnesses at the Health Centre reported that Singh was apparently retching violently and seemed in a critical condition. It needs to be mentioned here that in spite of several fatal and near fatal accidents at work and also in the laboratories in the Institute, the Health Centre is so inadequately prepared to handle emergencies that a patient has to be carted to a hospital an hour away. This obviously ensures that slim chances of survival in critical cases are effectively lost.

When some students went to the site at 12.30 pm they were told by a worker at the site that Singh first fell on the safety net and then came down along with the net due to his weight and force of the fall. He added that he was saved because of the net, “had it not been there, he would not have survived and fallen directly on the building construction material lying on the floor where he fell”. But when the students asked how come the net was right at its place then, they were told that it was immediately tied back as a safety measure. At the same time the workers also informed that they by themselves had not seen Singh falling. The students went around the site and found some workers still working on 'similar cut-outs without railing' (from where Singh had fallen) on various floors – they were not wearing safety belts, though they had helmets. Another set of workers who were doing shuttering work on the same site at the time of the accident, but were not eyewitness to the accident, were emphatic that there was no net at the site at the time of the accident.

A worker who was at the site at around 11.00 am told that the deceased was not wearing any safety gear, either helmet or belt. He also added that the institute authorities moved in immediately after the accident, stopped the work, removed all the other workers from the site and apparently did some window dressing like putting up new nets, etc. at the site. In fact he claimed that he overheard an institute official ordering the men of contractor to arrange nets, etc. from anywhere and place them at the necessary positions.

Some more individuals visited the construction site the next day around 12.30 pm and inspected the site of the accident. They found that work had been stopped at the site, but a very new looking net was tied from wall to wall across the whole court yard on the second floor, just one floor below (between 3rd and 1st) from where Singh had fallen. The net, however, was tied rather untidily, with wide gaps between separate nets, and relatively loose knots so that even to a lay person the net appeared to provide only doubtful security, irrespective of whether it was in place before or after the accident. They also found new nylon ropes neatly tied across all the corridors on various floors from where Singh had fallen. There were some men hovering at the site who claimed to be supervisors of the building contractor. When one of them was asked as to when was the net put up, at first he said it has been there for a while. But when pointed out that it appeared very new, he said it was tied “one week back”. When asked from where and when it was bought, he said that he had no idea about that.

The Issues

This is the third fatal fall from a high rise building in the campus in the last 16 months and eighth fatal accident at work in the last five years that has been recorded by the community. Every time while the community has raised systemic issues in this regard (please follow the links at the end of this report for details of these issues), the Institute first falls back on an “all is well” stance and then puts in some shoddy face saving measures. In May-June 2011 too, after the two fatal falls within a fortnight, the Institute’s initial energy was spent finding holes in the Hamara Manch reports on the incidents rather than starting any serious investigation of their own. This was followed by the sudden very visible appearance of helmets, belts and safety nets while unsafe working practices continued to be quite visible even to a lay observer. The best illustration of such window dressing is the PB Vijay committee report. A one man committee consisting of Vijay, a retired director general of the CPWD, was formed in June last year to investigate the two accidents. The committee report has never been shared with the community. After repeated requests for one year by some concerned members of the alumni, finally the report was shared with them (see the report here: http://iitkcf.appspot.com/Sk9wxE).

If one looks at the ‘report’ which is less than two pages (apparently there is a 28 page annexure which is so ‘sensitive’ that it has not been shared!), one can come to only one conclusion: That workers’ life is of no value in this Institute. Even a college sophomore probably will write a better term paper! All that the report has to say is that workers themselves were responsible for their deaths and all that the authorities can add to their foolproof system are a few nets. And hence authorities have ensured that there are nets in place, whether before or after the accident is only a matter of detail.

We all can decide to keep quiet on this death as well and feel comfortable that it is only ‘natural’ for a worker to die of accidents on such construction sites, or for that matter, those who are responsible for taking care must be taking good care. Or in the spirit of science be willing to analyse the issue and apply reason to the series of these fatal mishaps and loss of human life and destruction of so many others for whom these workers were the only breadwinners.

For Hamara Manch, this is neither natural nor ‘life as usual’, and the Institute forming another ‘one man committee’, is absolutely unacceptable. Interestingly in this case even the name of the Chair of the committee has not been made public; one wonders how anyone who knows anything about the incident is supposed to contact him!.

Hamara Manch demands:

• 1. An enquiry into the series of fatal accidents including the present by an independent Human Rights organisation, like PUDR-PUCL.

  2. All the reports (along with all the annexures) related to all the deaths be made public immediately.

  3. The Institute makes public what it has done about the various safety related reports and their recommendations so far.

  4. The Institute declares what punitive measures it has taken against the guilty contractors and officials in the last five years.

We appeal to all the members of the IITK community: workers, students, staff, residents of the campus, and the alumni to join us in holding the administration accountable.

October 22, 2012