ive-year-old ‘Prince of
Kurukshetra’ was really lucky to be saved from the 60-foot-deep borewell into which he had fallen. But even then, imagine the trauma that the child has undergone and the nightmare that the parents have gone through. All because those who bored the well were not bothered about safety. One sees such a casual attitude to safety everywhere one looks. In the open manholes, in the huge open gutters that overflow during monsoon, in the live wires that are left hanging on roadsides, in the pits that are dug in the middle of the road and left unattended and without a warning light, in the way firecrackers are hawked in temporary shops made of highly flammable material, in the temporary electrical connections that are carelessly drawn for illuminating pandals pitched for functions and exhibitions. Most of them are open invitations to disaster. And we see the consequences at regular intervals. How can one ever forget the Meerut consumer exhibition fire tragedy or for that matter the Kumbakonam school fire? In fact in just about everything we do, we exhibit certain callousness, certain lack of safety consciousness.
Even in Prince’s rescue operation that was shown so vividly on television, one could see the lack of safety consciousness. The Army did a wonderful job of rescuing the child, but what was surprising was that when the rescuers were sent down in a drum, they wore no safety gear. Considering that they would be descending 60 feet below ground level, they should have worn helmets to protect their heads.
If one were to see the same operation in Europe or North America, one would have seen the rescuers properly protected against any kind of eventuality — what if the earth caved in? So they would have worn helmets with attached lights, even carried oxygen cylinders on their back. It would be foolish not to take such precautions and it was surprising that the Army was not acting along those lines to ensure that those who were working to save the child did not themselves become victims.
We imagine that unlike civilians, the armed forces are more safety-conscious, but these incidents make one wonder. Remember the Wular lake tragedy where a sailor allowed 37 schoolchildren to go on a joy ride on an assault boat that had a capacity to carry only 16? Twentyone children died in the incident. In fact some years ago, in its order in the case of Wg Cdr Sandhu, the apex consumer court had expressed surprise that a boat club run by the Army did not have safety equipment such as life jackets and life buoys — three family members of two Air Force officers had died following a joy ride on an overcrowded boat on Barapani Lake near Shillong.
What is apparent is that tragedies caused on account of our lack of safety consciousness are on the increase and unless we take appropriate measures, such incidents will only go up. So first and foremost, safety consciousness has to be inculcated in those who work in public places, be it in the government sector or the private sector. Similarly, safety should become part of the school curriculum so that children become safety-conscious and grow up to be more responsible citizens.
While that is the preventive part, we also need to identify and punish those who violate safety norms. We need to send out a clear signal that such criminal negligence will not be tolerated. This reminds me of two Indian executives working for a joint venture company in Turkey, who were jailed and faced imprisonment for anywhere between four to 10 years after two kids drowned in a trench dug by the company. The trenches had been dug for laying crude oil pipelines and as a safety requirement, were barricaded and marked. But, subsequently, heavy rains filled the trenches and the water could not be drained.
Apparently, the company even held safety sessions with the villagers and warned the children about the trenches, but despite that two children drowned in the water while playfully floating on a wooden platform. So the two executives — one a construction manager and another a deputy health and safety manager — were sentenced to undergo imprisonment by a district court and their appeal was dismissed by a higher court, forcing the company which employed them to negotiate for a settlement and pay huge amounts as compensation to the two families. So when an agency — whether government or private — ignores public safety, it is not enough to punish the worker actually responsible for it. Senior officers or heads of companies have to be held accountable. Only then will the safety message go home.
