Civil rights organisation, the People’s Union of Democratic Rights (PUDR), has demanded an independent investigation into the industrial accident at the Ambuja-Holcim cement plant in Chhattisgarh last week, which claimed the lives of five workers.

In a press release, PUDR alleged that what was being passed off as an ‘industrial accident’ was actually a case of ‘criminal negligence’.

It quoted local reports that said the deaths took place when the fly-ash hopper situated on the fifth floor collapsed, and crashed through four floors below, and that the cause of the accident was that the hopper was overloaded beyond capacity. “While the capacity of the hopper was 170 tonnes, it had been loaded with a weight of 300 tonnes,” it said quoting reports.

PUDR alleged that family members of the killed workers were not permitted to go to the spot, nor were they shown the bodies of the deceased. Journalists, too, were not allowed inside the plant after the accident, it alleged.

It said its recent investigation and report on the conditions of cement workers in Chhattisgarh (Working Against Odds: Conditions of Workers in the cement industry in Chattisgarh, 2012) showed that this accident was a direct consequence of the complete absence of safety measures in the plant, lack of maintenance and the practice of exposing workers to extremely hazardous work without any protection.

“This ‘accident’ was waiting to happen” it said, and added that the role of Ambuja-Holcim, which has a 9.44 per cent market share in the industry and is ranked third amongst the top 10 cement manufacturers in India, needed to be investigated independently.

PUDR also demanded that adequate and appropriate compensation be paid to the family members of all the workers killed in the accident or affected by it in any manner, said the release signed by Asish Gupta and D. Manjit, secretaries, PUDR.

aditi.n@thehindu.co.in

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