DRPG Critique

As circulated by DRPG, as also available on the website he advertised.

Dated: 2011-06-07

Hamara Manch prepared a report on the death of Master Rohit which they modified subsequently removing several inaccuracies in the earlier report. Unfortunately, even the modified report makes a number of assumptions and statements which are debatable. These are enumerated below:

• 1. Rohit was 18 years old. The exact age of Rohit cannot be determined now unless he was born in a hospital that has maintained records. His parents’ and friends’ recollections may not be exact (indeed they have changed from 16 to 18 already). When Rohit registered for work with the contractor, he gave his age as 22 years. The current best estimate we have of his age is in his post-mortem report that notes that he was “about 20 years old”.

  2. Rohit was working since 6 months. As per the contractor’s record, Rohit was working since May 2^nd. For every worker, the contractor maintains a register recording his periods of work. Rohit worked on this site from May 2^nd only, and not before.

  3. Belts and helmets on the site are of poor quality. The IWD (institute Works Department) ensures that all the belts and helmets are ISI-marked, and therefore are certified to be of reasonable quality.

  4. Family is being cheated of compensation. The right to assign compensation is with Worker Compensation Court. The court decides, looking at all aspects of the case, how much compensation is to be paid. Within a day of the accident, both the institute and the contractor filed a report to the court on the accident. The case is now to be decided by the court. The payment made to the family by the contractor is an interim measure, and court can ask for more compensation.

  5. Institute cannot get simple facts correct. Examples cited are that (i) Rohit was 18 years old not 22, (ii) he fell from 6^th floor not 5^th, (iii) he was taken to Hallett not Regency. I find this distressing! Let me pose the following scenario and ask if anyone would do different. There is a death on campus and you are obliged to bring out a communiqué quickly to inform the campus community about it. You dig out the records, and find that the worker was 22 years old. You ask the engineer and find out that he was working on 5^th floor. You ask the contractor’s man who accompanied the worker and he informs that the ambulance was taken to Regency and then to Hallett. Would you send the communiqué or wait until you have verified (i) the real age of worker (I am not even sure exactly how you can verify this!), (ii) whether the engineer used the Indian system of counting floors (ground up) or American system (first floor up), (iii) whether the contractor’s man really meant what he said, or whether he was (somewhat incoherently) trying to indicate that they were planning to go to Regency but changed their mind on the way and went to Hallett?

  6. Regional Labour Commissioner is hand-in-glove with contractors/institute. Hamara Manch report suggests this to be the reason why no action is initiated against the institute by the labour commissioner! Is the possibility that the institute is making efforts to ensure workers rights, and mostly succeeding, so difficult to contemplate that we must invest into conspiracy theories?

  7. Institute has refused to learn from workers’ death over last few years. Let us consider the institute’s major responsibilities around the event of Rohit’s accident:

     1. 1. Ensure that the contractor provides the workers necessary safety equipments

        2. Ensure that the contractor trains them to use it properly

        3. Ensure that the contractor pays minimum wages to the workers

        4. Ensure that the ambulance reaches the accident spot quickly

        5. Ensure that the immediate first-aid is provided to the injured worker, and then is taken to the hospital quickly

        6. Ensure that the contractor pays proper compensation to the worker’s dependents

        7. Carry out an audit of the entire event and identify scope for improvements.
           
           We got all of these right (more on point c later) except for e and maybe for b. We do not have trained paramedics in the health center and the driver and helper in ambulance are not confident of handling equipments like oxygen cylinder. Also, a couple of minutes were lost when the driver stopped in health center to inform that he is going to city (this could have been done over phone to save time). We need to work on the first-aid part, and this is something which is of use to the entire campus community, not just to workers. Also, most of our workers are not trained to work on high-rise buildings. The director is now issuing orders to engage an outside agency (we can take up the offer of Atul jain, our alumnus, to help, thanks to Rakesh Sharma for suggesting this). In addition, an order was issued to all the contractors on May 23^rd to suspend the construction activity on outside surfaces until the proper safety nets are installed and the workers are property trained. Finally, a committee was constituted the day after the accident with the task of identifying the sequence of events and make suggestions for improvements. Its report is nearly ready.

  8. Many workers get paid less than minimum wages. We have a Minimum Wages Monitoring Committee (MWMC) just for this purpose. Every worker is paid the wages in the presence of one of the institute’s representative. Not a single contract worker or institute representative has filed a complaint regarding the minimum wages in the last one year. If Hamara Manch has found something to the contrary, and they suspect that the workers are afraid to complaint, and the institute representatives are compromised, they can complaint on behalf of a worker with specific details to the committee and the committee will investigate the complaint. No such complaint has been received by the MWMC in last one year.

All of this is not to say that everything is perfect. And the institute welcomes help from well-wishers (of the institute as well as of workers) to identify processes it can improve. Forums like Hamara Manch can contribute much with a constructive attitude.

Prepared by:

Manindra Agrawal, Dean of Resource Planning and Generation with inputs from MWMC chairman, SE IWD, and many others.