Deaths in a Karachi Effluent Treatment Plant: Occupational Hazard?

Four workers in an effluent treatment plant in Karachi's Korangi Industrial Trading Estate, have allegedly died due to a methane gas leak in one of the plant's desludging pipes. This incident, reported widely in the daily newspapers, is the latest in a long list of events that amount to gross negligence on part of the employers and to a failure of the regulatory system.

Provisions related to Occupational Safety & Heath are spread across a number of legislation, including the Factories Act, 1934; Provincial Factories Rules; Hazardous Occupations Rules, 1963; Mines Act, 1923; West Pakistan Shops and Establishments Ordinance, 1969; Provincial Employees Social Security Ordinance, 1965; Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923 and Dock Laborers Act, 1934. While there may be a case--oft pleaded by experts--for consolidating and updating these provisions, there appears to be neither a work safety culture nor any momentum for change. In 2001, the Government of Pakistan promised to set up a National Occupational Safety and Health Council but that initiative has yet to see the light of the day. Similarly, a National Labour Protection Policy was published in 2006 which called for improving work safety and working environment for labour. No report on whether this policy is being implemented or not, has been published by the Government.

The existing laws are overlapping in scope and tend to be soft on reporting requirements, making data collection on the actual number of casualties, injuries and health concerns due to poor work environment a very difficult task. The existence of a large number of informal businesses compounds this problem because they are unregulated and hence no official data can be compiled on them. Curiously enough, the Labour Force Survey 2005-06 claims that at 41%, the majority of OSH related casualties/injuries took place in the agriculture sector, with manufacturing (15%), construction (14.5%) and mining (.3%) lagging far behind. Conventional wisdom would suggest the exact opposite in terms of results and this clearly points to under-reporting in the non-agriculture sectors.

Moreover, there is little confidence in the regulator's willingness and ability to ensure compliance with these standards. But as I have often argued on this blog, the employers must deliver on their responsibilities as well and develop work safety standards that meet international benchmarks, not just the outdated ones found in the current Pakistani legislation. While this is already happening in export-oriented sectors who have to meet exacting international standards set by the buyers, there is a need for the rest of the sectors to catch up.