Visakhapatnam: Around 4,000 contract workers belonging to trade unions, who are working at various units of the state-owned HPCL-VR complex in the city, will go on strike from Monday demanding that the HPCL management take immediate steps to improve safety standards at the refinery.
The refinery, which saw one of the worst industrials accidents in its history on Friday evening, had been warned about its poor safety records but the management had ignored them, said state secretariat member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Ch. Narasinga Rao.
Rao said that too much dependence on contract workers for regular works at the refinery, besides comprising on safety standards had led to the fire mishap at the under-construction cooling tower at the complex in which eight people had died and 39 were injured.
President of HPCL-VR Contract Workers’ Association, M.J. Naidu said, “Though the management of the complex was responsible for the fire, it was trying to hush-up the incident by showing silly reasons for the accident.”
He added that around 4,000 contract workers of the complex would go on strike from Monday. Narasinga Rao said though the S.A. Jain Committee on the HPCL-VR blast in 1997 had recommended that contractual and daily wage workers should not be to employed at electrical, instrumentation and other hazardous units, the management had been ignoring the recommendations.
The contract workers also demanded that the management announce compensations of Rs 20 lakh to each of the injured as they would be unable to work even after recovering from their burn injuries.
Injured worker airlifted
Only one injured contract worker, P. Venkata Rao, 44, who suffered 45-50 per cent burns in the HPCL fire incident and was admitted to Seven Hills Corporate Hospital in the city, was airlifted to the National Burns Center in Mumbai for special treatment on Sunday night.
Union minister of oil and natural gas, Veerappa Moily, who had visited the HPCL site, had informed that workers who had sustained above 70 per cent burns and 17 contract workers who had sustained below 50 per cent burns would be airlifted.
However, sources said that that only one worker was airlifted to Mumbai in an air-ambulance and six more had been identified for airlifting. They added that it was not possible to shift all 17 injured as some were not responding to treatment and would be difficult to airlift. Meanwhile the condition of the 12 injured who were under ventilator continued to remain very critical.
The refinery, which saw one of the worst industrials accidents in its history on Friday evening, had been warned about its poor safety records but the management had ignored them, said state secretariat member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Ch. Narasinga Rao.
Rao said that too much dependence on contract workers for regular works at the refinery, besides comprising on safety standards had led to the fire mishap at the under-construction cooling tower at the complex in which eight people had died and 39 were injured.
President of HPCL-VR Contract Workers’ Association, M.J. Naidu said, “Though the management of the complex was responsible for the fire, it was trying to hush-up the incident by showing silly reasons for the accident.”
He added that around 4,000 contract workers of the complex would go on strike from Monday. Narasinga Rao said though the S.A. Jain Committee on the HPCL-VR blast in 1997 had recommended that contractual and daily wage workers should not be to employed at electrical, instrumentation and other hazardous units, the management had been ignoring the recommendations.
The contract workers also demanded that the management announce compensations of Rs 20 lakh to each of the injured as they would be unable to work even after recovering from their burn injuries.
Injured worker airlifted
Only one injured contract worker, P. Venkata Rao, 44, who suffered 45-50 per cent burns in the HPCL fire incident and was admitted to Seven Hills Corporate Hospital in the city, was airlifted to the National Burns Center in Mumbai for special treatment on Sunday night.
Union minister of oil and natural gas, Veerappa Moily, who had visited the HPCL site, had informed that workers who had sustained above 70 per cent burns and 17 contract workers who had sustained below 50 per cent burns would be airlifted.
However, sources said that that only one worker was airlifted to Mumbai in an air-ambulance and six more had been identified for airlifting. They added that it was not possible to shift all 17 injured as some were not responding to treatment and would be difficult to airlift. Meanwhile the condition of the 12 injured who were under ventilator continued to remain very critical.