Unsafe factories: Industrial growth can’t come at workers’ cost
The death of three contract workers at Tata Electronics’ iPhone manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu’s Hosur on Monday underscores the human cost of India’s manufacturing ambitions. The workers reportedly succumbed to toxic gas while cleaning a wastewater treatment tank, a routine maintenance operation that should never have turned fatal. A few days earlier, three workers, including an engineer, died in an explosion and fire during maintenance at an Oil India facility in Assam. In October, five people were killed in a boiler explosion at a pharmaceutical unit in Andhra Pradesh, while suspected carbon monoxide exposure claimed two lives at a steel plant in Bokaro. A chemical factory explosion in Gujarat and an ammonia leak in Tamil Nadu add to the grim record.
