Bhilai Steel Plant: A History of Negligence, Alleges CITU

At about 11:30 a.m on Tuesday, a massive explosion of gas in the Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh claimed the lives of at least 11 workers, and injuring about 20 others. The death toll may rise since many of the injured are critical with over 80% burn injuries.

It may be recalled that earlier this year, three consecutive accidents had happened at the Bhilai Steel Plant on May 8, 9 and 10.

Tapan Sen, General Secretary of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), in a scathing letter to the Chairman of Steel Authority of India (SAIL), which owns the Bhilai plant, said that “frequency of accidents in the SAIL Steel Plants has already reached an alarming stage but the authorities concerned are still visibly unmoved to such alarming situation”.

The Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) is part of the SAIL family which is a public sector behemoth. SAIL produced 14.1 million tonnes of saleable steel in FY 2018. It had a net worth of Rs.35,714 crore in FY 2018 and net sales of Rs.15,743 crore.

BSP, located 40 km west of Raipur in Durg district of Chhattisgarh, manufactures steel rails mainly and produced 31,53,000 tonnes of saleable steel last year. Ironically, the Plant is accredited with SA: 8000 certification for social accountability and the OHSAS-18001 certification for Occupational Health & Safety.

A reply given in Lok Sabha by the Union Steel Minister stated that SAIL suffered from 20 fatalities due to accidents in its plants in 2015, 11 in 2016, and 16 in 2017. Besides these fatal accidents, it had also suffered other reportable accidents: 53 in 2015, 31 in 2016 and 35 in 2017.

In his letter, Sen pointed out that in May he had complained in writing “about the non-serious approach of the concerned plant management in this matter”.  He said that it was alarming that “violation of Standard Operating Practices and negligence of timely repair-maintenance work” were taking place on the plea of “maintaining unhindered pace of operational work”.

Sen had also demanded that real safety of workers would be ensured only if active departmental committees on safety as well as plant level safety committees are formed and activated. But the management has been negligent on this matter.

“On issues involving human lives, such an attitude and approach is not just uncondonable but continuance of same attitude has been contributing to such incidents of fatal disasters,” Sen said in his latest letter.

Sen has demanded an independent probe into the accidents and adequate compensation to families of those killed and injured including jobs to kin.

Steel plants in India are very prone to accidents and dozens of lives are lost every year. Due to the heavy presence of the private sector in steel production, the figures of casualties in accidents in private plants are not available, as the government itself has admitted in Parliament repeatedly.

According to a report by the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE), the annual fatality rate in Indian steel plants is about 50, which is one of the highest in the world.