'One-third of workers in asbestos factories suffering from asbestosis'

Ten years after he had worked in the Bombay-based factory of Hindustan Ferodo, J. Miranda started experiencing bouts of breathlessness. As his health grew progressively worse in the next five years. Miranda was treated for a variety of ailments including tuberculosis. But he was not cured. He was finally diagnosed at the G.S. Medical College as having asbestosis - an incurable lung malfunction caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibre. Miranda died at the age of 42.

Miranda's case epitomises the plight of a large number of workers at asbestos factories. Despite the alarming incidence of the dreaded disease, however, scant attention has been paid to working conditions in this industry or any serious effort made by India's asbestos industry or the Government to mitigate the menace of asbestosis. Said Dr S. R. Kamat head of the faculty of thoracic medicine at the G.S Medical College: "There is no doubt that one-third of the workers in asbestos factories are suffering from asbestosis."

Although asbestosis is listed as an occupational disease by the Employees State Insurance (ESI) Act, 1948, and Bombay hospitals have documented cases of it, explains Kamat: "There is a conspiracy to suppress information on the subject. Diseased workers are quietly pensioned off, and the authorities are bribed, and as a result there are few properly diagnosed cases of asbestosis on the records." The compensation for proven cases of asbestosis is so high that both the manufacturers and the insurance company prefer to suppress them.

Veil Removed:In February, however, the veil of secrecy that surrounded asbestos operations in the country was shattered when the British magazine, New Scientist, carried a report on the lack of safety measures and precautions taken by the Indian asbestos industry. Dominated by multinational corporations like Turner and Newall of Britain which controls Hindustan Ferodo and Asbestos Cement Limited.Johns-Manville of USA, which set up the Shree Digvijay Cement Company in Ahmedabad, the industry in India has evidently undertaken few antipollution or dust-control measures.

The New Scientists report alleges that although these multinational corporations take every precaution for workers' safety and health in their own countries, they violate these principles in the Third World countries like India. Specifically, the report points to open dumping of asbestos waste by Shree Digvijay and the lack of dust-control measures in the Hindustan Ferodo factory which manufactures asbestos brake and clutch linings and asbestos textiles. The multinational companies in the asbestos industry in India expose their workers to hazards which "would not be allowed in the West."

Asbestos company managements, however, insist that the New Scientist has been less than fair to them. Said N. Venkatraman. managing director of Hindustan Ferodo: "Our parent company lays down the condition that our standards have to be as strict as theirs are in Britain, and as a result we have taken precautions with regard to asbestos pollution which are as good as any in the West." Venkatraman. who is also chairman of the Asbestos Information Centre, a trade body, adds that his company has taken a lead both in imposing controls and checks on itself and creating an awareness of asbestos hazards in the industry. "It's quite upsetting that a company like ours. which had made a start long before the scare came, should be subjected to unwarranted criticism," he said.

Hazardous:But Hindustan Ferodo, while it has undoubtedly taken steps to reduce the hazards of airborne dust in its factory, is not entirely blameless. The clutch and brake lining units boast of an elaborate ventilation and dust-collection system which effectively controls the level of dust in working areas. But the corporation's textile section, which manufactures heat-resistant textiles for use in fire-fighting and industrial applications, is not so well-controlled.

The carding area has dust levels five times greater than the standards laid down. Loose plastic sheets hanging over the machines separate operators from the main carding area, and respirators are given to workers when they have to enter this area. But the slatted plastic sheets are no proof against asbestos fibre, which is so minute that it hangs in the air like dust and flies through the gaps in the plastic curtain.

Ferodo's workmen, however, refuse to wear the respirators on the grounds that they get suffocated in the heat in the carding rooms. Explained Katnat: "These respirators can only be worn in air-conditioned factories, it becomes difficult to breathe through them in the heat," The spinning section, too is filled with asbestos dust which is churned out by the rows of exposed spindles which form the yarn. While Venkatraman insists that it is impossible for Ferodo to do any more than it is doing in the way of dust control, certain cotton textile mills have proved that dust and fibres can be almost totally controlled and isolated by enclosing carding machines and arranging a sophisticated exhaust and ventilation system in spinning units.

No Precautions: Health hazards in Bombay's other asbestos units are far more obvious than in Ferodo where certain basic precautions are observed by the management. Asbestos Cement Limited, a sister concern of Ferodo takes virtually no safety precautions on the grounds that the wet-process moulding of asbestos sheets is not a hazardous operation.