This report by PUDR, Factory Fires and Workers: A Capital Story, examines the underlying causes of repeated factory fires in Delhi, and seeks to arrive at an understanding about why they are so recurrent.
Factory fires are chronic occurrences in Delhi. Particular incidents are reported upon, the immediate causes and consequences examined in the media and reports, especially if the incident leads to deaths of large numbers of workers. But soon, public attention shifts elsewhere, until the next major factory fire takes place.
The report is based on PUDR’s investigations into five incidents of factory fires over the last few years. It contextualises Delhi’s factory fires in the city’s history of industrial development and urban expansion and the laws and policies governing fire prevention. Tracing the establishment of industrial areas on the city’s peripheries and the persistence of non-conforming units – units outside their permitted zones – within the city, the report examines how regulation and policies work to ensure that fire prevention measures and workers’ right to safe and just working conditions remain systematically excluded from their ambit – in both ‘authorised’ areas as well as in unauthorised units. It argues that this larger context – and landscape of law and industrial development – is responsible for Delhi’s recurrent factory fires as much as specific triggers such as electrical short circuits or the stocking of inflammable chemicals at particular work sites. The report draws attention to the plight of workers who are literally and figuratively trapped in these contexts and bear the heaviest costs of Delhi’s factory fires, often with their lives.
To download the report, click below:
Factory Fires and Workers
