The government has initiated a
move to formulate a national occupational health and safety policy for
industrial sectors aiming to ensure workers' safety in the face of frequent
disasters in the country's billion-dollar garment sector, officials said.
The Ministry of Labour and
Employment (MoLE) has already prepared a draft on the proposed policy, which is
expected to get the government's nod within a month, they added.
The Tazreen and Rana Plaza
disasters that claimed more than 1200 workers and injured several others highly
forced to press the demand for a national occupational and health safety policy
for all the industrial sectors, they mentioned.
"The main purpose of the
safety policy is to ensure workplace and occupational health safety in all
formal and informal sectors to gradually reduce the death, injury and other
causalities," MoLE Secretary Mikail Shipar told the FE.
Earlier, there was no such policy
which is now a must for the industries, he said adding it is also necessary to
formulate national standards on safety.
The government will formulate a
national action plan within six months after the policy gets approval mainly to
implement the policy, he further said.
Replying to a question Mr Shipar
said a national plan of action has been taken only for the garment industry,
while the latest would cover all the sectors.
According to the draft policy,
all laws related to occupational health and safety will be scrutinised and
updated if necessary in each five years.
The draft also highlighted the
stakeholders-government, owners association, trade union, employers and management
authority and workers' responsibility.
The government will identify the
risky sectors on priority basis, develop and implement national policy and
legal framework and take work plan to implement them and preserve all the
information including the number of work related diseases, accidents, injured,
death and compensation.
The draft also recommended
immediate necessary steps for some sectors like ship breaking, construction,
garment, chemical, rice mill, re-rolling mill and transportation sectors where
accidents occur frequently.
Proper treatment and compensation
after any accident, rehabilitation of the injured workers at workplace,
arrangement to identify work-related diseases, occupational health problems and
periodic medical examinations of workers are recommended to be done by the
owners association, officials added.
It also emphasised on creation of
safety experts to ensure safe workplace and occupational health surveillance to
identify occupational diseases, they added.
Source:
the financial express. 15 August 2013
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