In a country where safety at workplace is grossly undermined, the government has at last taken steps to build capacity of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE). The work to this end has reportedly been progressing in the spirit of the National Action Plan (NAP) (2021-2026) on the labour sector adopted last year. Notably, the NAP is closely linked to the Labour Rights Road Map that the government earlier submitted to the governing body of the International Labour Organization (ILO). It may be recalled that labour rights issues took the centre stage especially after the Rana Plaza disaster at Savar nine years ago. Following the tragedy, the international community including the ILO prevailed upon the government to take measures meant for ensuring workers' safety at workplace and initiate a comprehensive reform process involving amendment of related labour laws, their implementation and establishment of quality institutions to that end. Obviously, among such institutions were included the labour inspectorate, dispute resolution mechanism and the labour court.
However even after all the efforts, serious workplace-related accidents have not stopped from happening. Needless to say, hundreds of innocent lives have been prematurely lost in such workplace-related accidents. As late as last week, the public had to witness yet another such accident at the worksite of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project at Uttara in the city as a huge concrete girder fell on an unsuspecting private car killing five including children. Clearly, absence of safety measures such as closing or controlling of traffic at the project site was glaringly evident.
Against this backdrop, it is reassuring to learn that the government has risen to the occasion to fulfil its commitment made to the country's development partners including ILO and the European Union (EU) about upholding labour rights and improving safety levels at the workplaces. In fact, these international bodies have been eager to see that more labour inspectors are recruited for the department of inspection so that it can operate at full capacity. As part of its move to strengthen the DIFE, the labour ministry, meanwhile, has reportedly created some new positions in the inspectorate as well as given approval to fresh recruitments already made. On this score, the latest move in this direction made by the government to set up new offices of the factory inspection department in eight different districts of the country, as reported in the Monday's issue of this paper, is a welcome development.
However, according to the status report of the national action plan on the labour sector, the inspection department is still understaffed as out of the 575 required posts of labour inspector in DIFE, currently it has to make do with only 311 inspectors. As if that was not enough, with this small number of inspectors, the department has to look after the safety issues of more than half a million factories (around 0.53 million) in both the garment and non-garment sectors. The task involved is understandably overwhelming considering that those inspectors are required to visit all those factories and other workplaces spread across the country. Then they have to prepare reports on the maintenance of safety standards at those workplaces and recommend measures to address the lapses, if any. Aware of the challenge before the DIFE, the government, expectedly, would go all out to substantially increase its capacity with an emphasis on manpower so that it may live up to the expectations of all the quarters concerned.