Safety: Crack down on 19 dangerous factories

A crackdown was announced on February 7 against 267 factories in residential areas that had not taken the safety measures required by the district administration.

District Coordination Officer Ahmed Javed Qazi had constituted a committee comprising the maintenance and inspection district officer, the labour district officer, the Rescue-1122 district officer and the industries district officer.  The administration had also engaged the officers involved with anti-encroachment campaigns to help with the crackdown.

Most of the factories the government will crackdown against are textile, chemical and garments units.

These factories were assessed on a 100-point hazard scale, 267 of them scored more than 80 points and 71 scored more than 90 points. The first notice was dispatched to 71 “most dangerous” factories on June 6, 2013. The factories were asked to fix various safety problems identified in a survey conducted in September 2012. They were given a week each to comply with safety regulations or face closure. The second notice, issued on September 26, was served to 67 factories telling them to relocate by December26 or face closure. Of these, 13 relocated and six factories have been sealed. District administration officials have said that these factories had asked for two more months to relocate. They said they had been busy with the anti-encroachment campaign and did not have the time to raid these factories. They said that the district administration was hoping the factories would realise the danger they were posing and relocate voluntarily.

Industries District Officer Muhammad Azhar said they were sealing the most dangerous factories first. He said they also had other campaigns to work on. But, he said, they will not let the issue die…“all of these factories have to relocate”.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2014.