Mid-Day: Pune: Monday, 21 July 2014.
A worker, who
was being exposed to asbestos on a daily basis and was repeatedly assured by
factory owners and doctors that everything was fine, was diagnosed with asbestosis
by a central agency.
 |
| Yogesh Sawant with his family. Sawant, who struggles even to pronounce asbestosis, said no one at the factory told him what he was exposing himself to. Pics/Sameer Markande |
During a
Diwali break from his hectic factory work last year, 34-year-old Yogesh Sawant
suddenly woke up from sleep and mumbled to his wife: ‘Ata Mala He Nahi Karaicha
Ahe’ (I don’t want to do this work anymore).
When this
happened, Sawant, who was working as a labourer in Ashadeep Frictions Ltd at
Ambernath, had been undergoing tests for chest pain and breathing problems.
Little did he know what was in store for him in the months to come. While the
factory management and its medical team kept assuring him there was no cause
for worry, Sawant kept exposing himself to the deadly asbestos dust in the
factory loom.
“The
management and their medical staff kept saying there was no cause for worry as
test after test came back negative for occupational diseases. But, at some
point, he was convinced there was something fishy about the factory work he was
doing,” Sawant’s wife Sarala said, with a faraway look in her eyes, sitting in
their tiny home at Maralgaon in Kalyan.
Soon Pawar
himself chips in, but stumbles over the word asbestosis. “I don’t even know how
to pronounce it (asbestosis). For 15 years, I worked in that factory but nobody
bothered to even tell me what I was dealing with,” he said.
The family
was in for a rude shock when a team of experts from the Union Ministry of
Labour descended on their home towards the end of last year and made Sawant
undergo X-ray scans and blood tests. Two workers from the factory: Sawant and
Manoj Saroj turned out to be the first confirmed cases of the deadly asbestosis
disease in Maharashtra.
In all, 13
cases of asbestosis and silicosis were detected by the central agencies in
Maharashtra last year alone even as over 2,44,890 tests conducted by 105
certified private doctors between January 2013 and May 30, 2014, reported no
occupational disease, including the 13 later found positive by the central
teams.
Worse, an
inspection of Ashadeep by a state team of the Directorate of Industrial Safety
and Health (DISH) on February 23, 2012, had found no violations or chemicals or
other hazards at the factory. “No contravention. No violations. Cases filed,”
it reads.
The factory
management did not own up responsibility and allegedly held back details of the
case from the government. And it did not provide adequate medical care and
compensation to Sawant. In a letter (99/7/ NRDC/ 2013CLI), the central
government was informed that the owner was dilly-dallying in giving
compensation.
In another
scathing letter (DISH/medical/13641-43/9), the agency noted to factory owner
Prabhakar Shetty: “You were repeatedly directed to send these two cases to the
Workmen’s Compen-sation Commission. But it seems you have refused to follow the
directions completely.”
Meanwhile, a
tired and frustrated Sawant dropped out of work without a notice in March this
year. Since then, he has been spending as much as Rs 3,000 a month for his
treatment. Saroj has shifted to his village for the time being. “I gave 15
years of my life to that company, but there has been no help from the owners,”
Sawant told mid-day.
His final
diagnosis reads: Asbestosis-profusion 2/3, t/t. The medical report advises
‘medical surveillance, and detailed clinical examination every six months’. “I
have to make ends meet and cannot sit at home without any work. If my daughters
get something at least, I’ll be happy. They should get some money so they can
take care of themselves should something happen to me”
Embarrassment:
Documents
accessed by mid-day under RTI expose the neglected state of affairs within the
state’s Directorate of Industrial Safety & Health (DISH), its failure to
make owners comply with norms on workers’ safety and compensation, and put a
big question mark on its ability to detect occupational diseases.
An internal
report prepared following the visit of an expert team of the National Institute
of Occupational Hazards (NIOH), confirmed cases which had been rejected by the
state’s industrial safety officers. A report (DISH/Medical/3151-64/10), rips
apart the private doctors who had failed to detect a single occupational disease.
“These
doctors are repeatedly inspecting the factories with our own team that is
monitoring situations in the factory. Yet, this visit by NIOH has exposed our
weaknesses and left a big question mark over our inspections, supervision, and
medical examination methods. This is a big embarrassment for Maharashtra,”
reads the internal report prepared by DISH Director V S Moray.
The 100-odd
private doctors are monitored by a single government surgeon, who not only
authorizes but performs medical examinations as well. The lone government
surgeon for Maharashtra, Dr Atul Band, conducted 2,500 tests last year and
confirmed the 13 cases highlighted by the NIOH. “There is a clear nexus of private doctors
and factory inspectors.
This nexus is
just fooling the people of Maharashtra into believing that all is well in our
factories and industries. But unfortunately that is not the case,” he told
mid-day. When we repeatedly asked Moray to provide details of industrial cases
detected by certified private doctors, Moray said: “This is confidential
information and not in the public domain, as much as we want to keep things
transparent.”
The NIOH
inspection report accessed by mid-day under the RTI Act clearly reveals how
factory owners and managers were allowed to go scot-free despite violating
norms. The inspections revealed that 23 asbestos factories, host to 2,583
workers, and several other factories in the MMR region were not conducting the
mandatory membrane filter test to monitor presence of asbestos fibre in the
work environment, and were not even conducting awareness training programmes
for the workers.
The
inspections found M/s Ashadeep Frictions, M/s Graphics India (Ambernath),
Eastwell Asbestos Industries (Ulhasnagar), Hyderabad Industries (Thane), Mechanical
Packaging (Tarapur), Nella Asbestos (Dahanu) and Wilson Products (Kolhapur),
not carrying out the all-important membrane tests.
Of the seven
inspections in Thane, six factories had not organized training programmes for
workers M/s Champion Seals, M/s Mechanical Packaging, M/s Standard Clutches
& Spares, M/s Standard Friction, M/s Ashadeep Frictions and Graphics
India.
The
inspections found that several other factories where stone cutting, crushing
and glass work is done and popcorn and rice puffs are made were host to
factors causing silicosis. In all, four
cases of silicosis and nine of asbestosis were detected by NIOH.
DISH is doing
a follow-up on all these cases. “All these were first found negative by private
doctors. We have now ordered an inquiry on them,” said a senior official.
According to data from the department, total compensation of Rs 8.46 crore had
accrued and an ex-gratia amount of Rs 3.7 crore was paid last year to workers
across the state.
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