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KARACHI, July 24: A majority of factories in the largest industrial zone of the province, the Sindh Industrial and Trading Estate, (Site) have no professional boiler operators, sources told PPI on Tuesday.
Many garment factory workers in Site have expressed serious reservations after Tuesday’s tragic incident when a building housing a towel-manufacturing unit in New Karachi collapsed due to a boiler blast, claiming at least seven lives.
Sources claimed that many factories had no proper maintenance arrangements for their boilers, and they did not care about their responsibilities in this regard as per the relevant laws.
They said that a lot of factories lacked proper ventilation, fire exits, ambulance service, and medical aid facilities. They said that many factories in Site, where large amounts of inflammable-carcinogenic chemicals and high temperature fluids are dealt with on a daily basis, do not pay attention to safety measures and hiring professional and trained staff to run boilers and other sensitive machinery.
But Imran Shaukat, Chairman of the Site Association of Industries, when contacted, said that ensuring proper safety measures was the duty of the governmental agencies and there was also a specific ‘Boiler Inspection Agency.’
He, however, denied allegations regarding negligence on the part of factory owners. He said that it was a big loss to the factory owners, too, if such tragic incidents occurred, which stopped production and supply and affected the manufacturer’s reputation in the market.
“In the present era foreign buyers themselves inspect our factories before placing orders. Hence there is less chances for lack of safety in any major factory of Site,” he said, adding that all preventive measures were based on domestic standards. Regarding industrial accidents, he said that no one can guarantee to prevent them, however, utmost care should be taken to avert them.
It may be noted that in January of this year, five workers were injured in an incident of boiler blast at the Lakhani Mills in Site.
