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The Factories Act, 1948 - SPM Notes (Park's Textbook)

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Historical Background

• The first Indian Factories Act dates back to 1881
• The Act was revised and amended several times
• Latest amendment: Factories (Amendment) Act, 1987

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1. SCOPE

• Factory is defined as an establishment employing:
  • 10 or more workers where power is used
  • 20 or more workers where power is not used
• No distinction between perennial and seasonal factories
• 1976 amendment: expanded definition of "worker" to include contract labour employed in the manufacturing process
• Applies to the whole of India except Jammu & Kashmir (at the time)
• State Governments appoint: Chief Inspector, Additional Chief Inspectors, Joint Chief Inspectors, Deputy Chief Inspectors, and Inspectors

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2. HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELFARE (Chapters III, IV, IVA & V)

Health Provisions

• Cleanliness, lighting, ventilation
• Treatment and disposal of wastes and effluents (render innocuous)
• Elimination of dusts and fumes
• Provision of spittoons
• Control of temperature
• Supply of cool drinking water during summer
• Employment of cleaners for water closets
• Minimum space per worker:
  • 500 cu. ft per worker (factories set up after 1948 Act)
  • 350 cu. ft per worker (factories installed before the 1948 Act)

Safety Provisions

• Casing of new machinery
• Devices for cutting off power
• Hoists, lifts, cranes and lifting devices
• Protection of eyes
• Precautions against dangerous fumes, explosive and inflammable materials
• No worker shall be required to lift/carry loads likely to cause injury
• State Governments empowered to prescribe maximum weights for men, women, and children
• 1976 amendment (Section 40B): Appointment of Safety Officers in every factory employing 1,000 or more workers

Welfare Provisions (Chapter V)

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3. EMPLOYMENT OF YOUNG PERSONS

• Prohibited: Employment of children below 14 years
• Adolescents: Persons aged 15-18 years
  • Must be certified as fit by Certifying Surgeons
  • Allowed to work only between 6 AM and 7 PM
• Restrictions on employment of women and children in certain dangerous occupations

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4. HOURS OF WORK

• Maximum: 48 hours per week, not exceeding 9 hours per day
• Rest: At least 1/2 hour after every 5 hours of continuous work
• For adolescents: hours reduced to 4.5 hours per day
• 1976 amendment: Spread-over period (including rest intervals) increased to 12 hours (from 10.5 hours)
• Total hours per week including overtime: shall not exceed 60

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5. LEAVE WITH WAGES

• Entitlement after 12 months' continuous service:
  • Adults: 1 day leave for every 20 days of work
  • Children: 1 day leave for every 15 days of work
• Leave accumulation limit:
  • Adults: up to 30 days
  • Children: up to 40 days

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6. OCCUPATIONAL DISEASES

• Management must notify specified accidents causing death, serious bodily injury, or occupational disease
• Act gives a schedule of notifiable diseases
• 1976 amendment added to the list:
  • Byssinosis
  • Asbestosis
  • Occupational dermatitis
  • Noise-induced hearing loss
• Provision for enquiry in every case of a fatal accident
• Safety and occupational health surveys in factories/industries

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7. EMPLOYMENT IN HAZARDOUS PROCESSES

• New Chapter IV-A added by Factories (Amendment) Act, 1987
• Site Appraisal Committee to be constituted: Chief Inspector + not more than 14 members total
• Reviews service conditions of employees in factories involving hazardous processes
• Specific responsibilities of occupier in relation to hazardous processes
• Workers' participation in safety management
• List of hazardous industries: 1st Schedule of the Act

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The Employees' State Insurance (ESI) Act, 1948 - SPM Notes (Park's Textbook)

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Background

• Passed in 1948; amended in 1975, 1984, 1989, 2010, and 2019
• Important measure of social security and health insurance
• Provides cash and medical benefits in case of sickness, maternity, and employment injury
• First introduced the principle of contribution by both employer and employee in India

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SCOPE

• Small factories employing 10 or more persons (whether or not power is used)
• Shops
• Hotels and restaurants
• Cinemas and theatres
• Road-motor transport establishments
• Newspaper establishments
• Private medical and educational institutions employing 20 or more persons (in some states)

• From 1.5.2010: employees getting up to Rs. 15,000/month
• Revised to Rs. 21,000/month (w.e.f. 6.9.2016)

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ADMINISTRATION

• Entrusted to an autonomous body: ESI Corporation (ESIC)
• Chairman: Union Minister for Labour
• Vice-Chairman: Secretary, Ministry of Labour, Govt. of India
• Members: Central & State Governments, employers, employees' organizations, medical profession, Parliament
• Standing Committee acts as executive body
• Chief Executive Officer: Director General, assisted by 4 Principal Officers:
  1. Insurance Commissioner
  2. Medical Commissioner
  3. Financial Commissioner
  4. Actuary
• Medical Benefit Council headed by Director General of Health Services, GOI

• 1526 ESI dispensaries
• 1753+ panel clinics
• 307 diagnostic centres
• 159 ESI hospitals + 42 hospital annexes

• 22,600 beds

• 559 branch offices, 185 cash offices

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FINANCE

• (Revised rates w.e.f. 1.7.2019)
• Employees getting daily wages below Rs. 176 are exempted from employee contribution

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BENEFITS TO EMPLOYEES (7 Benefits)

1. Medical Benefit

• Full medical care (including hospitalization) - free of cost - in sickness, employment injury, and maternity
• Services include:
  • Out-patient care
  • Supply of drugs and dressings
  • Specialist services (all branches)
  • Pathological and radiological investigations
  • Domiciliary services
  • Antenatal, natal, postnatal services
  • Immunization and family planning services
  • Emergency and ambulance services
  • Health education
  • In-patient treatment
• Delivered via direct pattern (ESI dispensaries/hospitals) or indirect/panel system (Insurance Medical Practitioners)
• Also extended to family members of workers (restricted or expanded medical care)

2. Sickness Benefit

• Cash payment for duly certified sickness
• Payable for a maximum of 91 days in any continuous period of 365 days
• Daily rate: approximately 70% of average daily wages
• Worker protected from dismissal/discharge during sickness period

• For 34 specified long-term diseases (e.g., TB, leprosy, AIDS, malignancies, COPD, cirrhosis, renal failure, schizophrenia, etc.)
• Requires 2 years' continuous employment
• Extended up to 2 years

• For tubectomy (women): 14 days at double standard rate (full wages)
• For vasectomy (male IPs): 7 days at double standard rate

3. Maternity Benefit

• Cash payment at approximately full wages
• Confinement: 26 weeks
• Miscarriage: 6 weeks
• Sickness arising out of confinement: 30 days
• Confinement expenses: Rs. 7,500 per confinement

4. Disablement Benefit

• Cash payment + free medical treatment for employment injury / occupational disease
• Temporary disablement: ~90% of wages for duration of disablement
• Total permanent disablement: Life pension based on loss of earning capacity (determined by medical board)
• Partial permanent disablement: Proportionate life pension

5. Dependant's Benefit

• In case of death due to employment injury, dependants receive periodic payments
• Rate: 90% of wages shared by dependants in fixed ratio
• Eligible son/daughter: benefit up to age 18 (withdrawn on daughter's marriage if earlier)

6. Funeral Expenses

• Cash payment towards funeral expenses of insured person
• Amount: not exceeding Rs. 15,000/-

7. Rehabilitation Allowance

• On monthly payment of Rs. 10, insured person and family continue to get medical treatment after:
  • Permanent disablement, or
  • Retirement

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BENEFITS TO EMPLOYERS

1. Exemption from Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923
2. Exemption from Maternity Benefit Act, 1961
3. Exemption from providing/paying for medical care of employees and dependants
4. Rebate under Income Tax Act on contribution deposited in ESI Account
5. Healthy workforce

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RAJIV GANDHI SHRAMIK KALYAN YOJNA (w.e.f. 1st April, 2005)

• Scheme for unemployed workers covered under ESI
• Covers involuntary unemployment due to retrenchment/closure of factory
• Eligibility: Insurable employment for 5 or more years with contributions
• Unemployment allowance: Maximum 6 months during entire service (in one spell or multiple spells of ≥1 month)

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Coverage (as of 31.3.2020)

• 309 lakh employees covered (including 62.6 lakh women)
• Total beneficiaries: ~1324 lakhs
• Covers ~7.83 lakh factories/establishments in 34 States/Union Territories

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LEAD POISONING - SPM Notes (Park's Textbook)

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Introduction

• More industrial workers are exposed to lead than to any other toxic metal
• Properties of lead that make it widely used:
  1. Low boiling point
  2. Mixes with other metals easily to form alloys
  3. Easily oxidised
  4. Anticorrosive
• All lead compounds are toxic
  • Most dangerous: lead arsenate, lead oxide, lead carbonate
  • Least toxic: lead sulphide

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Industrial Uses

• Over 200 industries use lead, including:
  • Manufacture of storage batteries
  • Glass manufacture
  • Ship building
  • Printing and potteries
  • Rubber industry, and several others

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Non-Occupational (Environmental) Sources

• Greatest source: Gasoline (thousands of tons of lead exhausted from automobiles every year)
• Lead is one of the few trace metals abundantly present in the environment
• Other sources:
  • Drinking water from lead pipes
  • Children chewing lead paint on window sills or toys

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Mode of Absorption (3 Routes)

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Body Stores & Distribution

• Body store of lead in average adult: 150-400 mg
• Normal blood level: ~25 μg/100 ml
• Blood level of 70 μg/100 ml is associated with clinical symptoms
• Normal daily ingestion: 0.2-0.3 mg/day (from food and beverages)

Distribution in Body:

• 90% of ingested lead is excreted in faeces
• Absorbed lead enters circulation → 95% enters erythrocytes
• Transported to liver and kidneys → finally deposited in bones (laid down with other minerals)
• Bone lead is 'metabolically inactive' but may be released under conditions of bone resorption

Mechanism of Toxicity:

• Combines with essential -SH (sulphydryl) groups of certain enzymes
• Particularly those involved in porphyrin synthesis and carbohydrate metabolism
• Effect on membrane permeability - potassium leakage demonstrated from erythrocytes exposed to lead

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Clinical Picture (Plumbism)

Inorganic Lead Poisoning:

• Abdominal colic
• Obstinate constipation
• Loss of appetite
• Blue line on gums (Burton's line - classic sign)
• Stippling of red cells (basophilic stippling)
• Anaemia
• Wrist drop and foot drop (peripheral neuropathy)

Organic Lead Poisoning (e.g., tetraethyl lead):

• Toxic effects mostly on CNS:
  • Insomnia
  • Headache
  • Mental confusion
  • Delirium

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Diagnosis

1. History

• History of lead exposure

2. Clinical Features

• Loss of appetite, intestinal colic, persistent headache, weakness, abdominal cramps, constipation, joint and muscular pains, blue line on gums, anaemia

3. Laboratory Tests

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Preventive Measures (9 Points)

1. Substitution - Replace lead compounds with less toxic materials wherever possible
2. Isolation - All processes generating harmful concentrations of lead dust or fumes should be enclosed and segregated
3. Local exhaust ventilation - Adequate system to remove fumes and dust promptly
4. Personal protection - Workers protected by approved respirators
5. Good housekeeping - Floors, benches, machines kept clean by wet sweeping (not dry, to avoid re-suspension of dust)
6. Working atmosphere - Lead concentration kept below 2.0 mg per 10 cubic metres of air (permissible limit/threshold value)
7. Periodic medical examination - All workers must undergo:
   • Urinary lead estimation
   • Blood lead estimation
   • Red cell count
   • Haemoglobin estimation
   • Coproporphyrin test (urine)
   • Basophilic stippling estimation
   • (WHO Expert Committee: not only the average blood lead level matters, but also the number of subjects whose blood level exceeds 70 μg/ml or ALA in urine exceeds 10 mg/litre)
8. Personal hygiene - Handwashing before eating; adequate washing facilities; prohibition on taking food in work places
9. Health education - Workers educated on risks and personal protection measures

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Management

1. Prevention of further absorption
2. Removal of lead from soft tissues
3. Prevention of recurrence

• Early recognition → remove worker from further exposure
• Saline purge to remove unabsorbed lead from the gut
• D-penicillamine (chelating agent) - promotes lead excretion in urine
• Ca-EDTA (chelating agent) - promotes lead excretion in urine

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Important Legal Point

• Lead poisoning is a notifiable and compensatable disease in India since 1924

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