Chairman of Value Added Textile Associations Rana Muahmmad Mushtaq Khan on Tuesday clarified that all factories come under strict control of multiple government departments all of which monitor safety and security measures in industrial units.
Commenting on the Baldia Town factory fire and the resultant media hype about factory managements, he said that several government departments such as Civil Defence ensured labour training and issued Labour Training Certificate for employees as well as Terminal Certificate.
Similarly, the Labour Department carried out periodic medical examinations of workers by a certified surgeon while the Labour Department's Technical Inspection Engineers carried out health and safety measures. In addition, there was one Department of Electrical Inspector which inspected electrical installations at factories. Then there is SESSI which "is in-charge of education cess and social security of labourers".
EOBI, he said, was another department which collected old-age funds. "Boiler Inspector comes next. Moreover, all factories regularly pay fire and conservancy charges to the government." He said that previously all these departments carried out checks and audits of all factories two or three times every year, but on a request made to the Chief Minister of Sindh and as ordered by him, currently inspection and audit "is being carried out once a year".
According to him, all export-oriented manufacturing units strictly complied with requirements of foreign buyers and certification agencies' periodically visited these factories to ensure safety and security issues. "These agencies even ensure the number of bathrooms for factory staff and other facilities being provided to workers. All manufacturing units strictly comply with all these requirements without which they will be deprived of valuable foreign orders".
He, however, lamented that unfortunately the infrastructure provided by the government "is most miserable which can be seen by an ill-equipped fire brigade, empty water hydrants as well as other hurdles which criminally prevents immediate rescue measures". He stressed that it was the duty of all local government departments that earned massive revenue from industries to ensure a safe and secure environment in industries.-PR