ADAMHALLIDAY Sun May 16 2010 INDIAN EXPRESS Ahmedabad
At least 88 people, including three children under five years, and a 60-year-old man, have been killed in accidents at construction sites in Ahmedabad since 2006, replies to a series of RTI queries filed at various police stations have revealed.
Replies to these RTI queries filed by the Bandhkam Mazdoor Sangathan also show that at least 83 others were badly injured in such accidents. In 71 registered cases with the police stations, 50 were marked as accidental deaths. In most of the tragedies, the police records show details of the accidents and how the victims died.
Police record about one such accident reveals that on January 6, 2006, four-year-old Sejal Vadakia was playing with her two-year-old sister on the premises of Arjun Apartments in Ghatlodia, which was under-construction at the time.
The roof collapsed and buried the siblings, killing them on the spot.
In mid-November last year, five workers were killed immediately when the underbridge in the Ellisbridge area they were working under collapsed. Three of the victims were in their 20s.
Roughly, over half of all the victims mentioned in the RTI replies are under the age of 30.
Some were on the verge of retirement.
On September 1, 60-year-old Ghudaji Thakor was sprinkling water on the freshly cemented terrace of a bungalow in Somnath Society, Naranpura. He fell from there and died. A case of accidental death was registered.
In the same year, another 60-year-old man, Bindu Khan, fell under the weight of an unspecified load of material he was carrying and died on the spot. He was working on the premises of the Ilahi Masjid in Jamalpur, an entry in the Gaekwad Haveli police station record says.
The records reveal that several workers fell off upper floors or died in cave-ins. Some of the victims died of fatal injuries sustained from falling objects, while some were caught under collapsed walls.
In one incident, two workers died after falling into a pit they had dug. Several tragedies saw family members killed in the same accidents.
In a case registered at Sola police station, on November 5, 2006, 42-year-old Suleiman Ladhan and his 22-year-old son, Ismail, were killed when the soak pit they were building up with brick and plaster at the Kesar Sal Hospital caved in.
The labour union that filed the RTIs had specifically asked for description of the deaths to raise awareness among workers regarding safety measures at construction sites, said Vipul Pandya, the general secretary of the labour union that filed the RTIs.
As police records suggest many workers have died in the last few years after falling from height, so union workers are told to be more careful while working on terraces and rooftops. “There is no exact data of deaths and injuries available with the government, so we decided to look at police records,” said Pandya.
Not that there are no safety regulations, but they exist largely on paper.
There are two Central legislations concerning health and safety of construction workers. One of them is the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act, 1996. The Gujarat government had also notified these laws, but with a number of dilutions.
In the last few months, however, a series of consultations and conferences have been held at the government-run Mahatma Gandhi Labour Institute, although no tangible change in the law or its implementation has been enacted so far.
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