Hazardous Processes and Dangerous Operations

In one line

A factory carrying on a hazardous process must be sited with the approval of a committee, must tell its workers, the inspector, the local authority and the public what can go wrong, must keep health records, employ competent supervisors, medically examine its workers before, during and after the job, and work within permissible limits of exposure.

In exam wording: section 82 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 empowers the appropriate Government to make rules for dangerous operations; section 83 provides for site appraisal committees to recommend on the initial location or expansion of a factory involving a hazardous process, within thirty days; section 84 requires compulsory disclosure of information by the occupier, a safety policy, an on-site emergency plan approved by the Chief Inspector-cum-Facilitator, thirty days' prior information before beginning a hazardous process, and measures for handling and disposal of hazardous substances, on pain of cancellation of the licence; section 85 imposes three specific responsibilities as to health records, competent supervisors and medical examination; section 86 empowers the Central Government to direct the National Board to inquire into an extraordinary situation, its recommendations being advisory; section 87 provides for emergency standards; and section 88 leaves the maximum permissible limits of exposure to chemical and toxic substances to be prescribed by the State Government.

Why the law has this at all

On the night of 2 December 1984 a gas escaped from a plant at Bhopal and killed thousands of people who did not work there. A year later oleum escaped from a plant at Delhi and injured people who did not work there either.

Everything in these seven sections follows from those two facts, and from one conclusion drawn from them: that in a hazardous industry the people at risk are not only the workforce. That is why section 84 requires disclosure to the general public in the vicinity, why section 83 puts the location of the plant before a committee, and why section 86 lets the Central Government order an inquiry into an extraordinary situation rather than waiting for a prosecution.

The design has four moves and it is worth seeing them as a sequence.

Before the plant exists, control the site. Section 83.

Once it exists, compel information. Section 84, and it is a remarkable section: disclosure to workers, to the inspectorate, to the local authority and to the public; a written safety policy lodged with the authorities; an approved on-site emergency plan; thirty days' notice before a hazardous process begins; and published measures for handling and disposing of hazardous substances.

While it runs, watch the people. Section 85: health records the worker can see, competent supervision, and medical examination before, during and after the job.