The Hindu Business Line : Fire predominant in textile industry accidents

FIRE predominates among the `causes' of common accidents in textile industries, all right. But what would not have dawned on many maybe is that most of such fire accidents in textile industry do take place in broad day-light, between 8 am and 5 pm when most units would be running with full complement of workers engaged in production activities inside the plant.

This aspect of fire-induced accidents formed the crux of the deliberations at the inaugural session of a seminar on `safety, health and environment (SHE) in textile industry' organised under the aegis of the inspectorate of factories here. Citing the case studies of the textile mill fire mishaps analysed by the Loss Prevention Association (LPA), Mr M B Pranesh, Principal Secretary, Department of Labour and Employment, Tamil Nadu Government, said the studies also brought to light the fact that while 50 per cent of the fire accidents were seen occurring during various stages of textile manufacturing process, 40 per cent of the fire caused inside the textile plant are said to be occurring in storage point, obviously from cotton godowns situated in the mill premises.

While 50 per cent of the fire accidents were found to have been reported between 8 am and 5 pm, another 25 per cent of the fire mishap, as per the LPA study, were occurred between 5 pm and 10 pm and the remaining 25 per cent were noted spread out in different timings.

According to Mr Pranesh, the fire accidents had revealed that non-installation/non availability of fire hydrant system inside the plant was traced as the cause for bulk of the fire outbreaks and another 25 per cent of fire-mishap was attributed to lack of fire separation system.

Mr R Thiruvengadam, Chief Inspector of Factories, pointed out that while fire and effluent discharges stayed as the two main planks of concern in the safety elements in the textile industries, the technology upgradation in the textile sector had gone far into reducing the industrial accidents. The shift from usage of wooden bobbins to plastic bobbins of late has led to reduction in accidents in the spinning industries.

Mr S V Arumugham, Deputy Chairman of the Southern India Mills Association, said that induction of the modern machinery in textile mills had brought down the scope of occupational hazards to the minimum. The new generation humidification plants being installed in the spinning industries had brought the cotton fibre fly incidents to well within the standards. Similarly, the induction of shuttle-less looms and new generation weaving preparatory machines too helped to eliminate the noise levels in the weaving shed which used to be identified as the cause for the noise induced loss of hearing among the workers.