No compensation for Tampaco victims yet
The victims of Tampaco boiler explosion did not receive any compensation yet, even after five months of the accident that killed 40 workers.
Furthermore, the families of seven victims did not even get the bodies from the morgue of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, due to a delay in DNA profiling.
On September 10 last year, the five-storey factory in Tongi BSCIC industrial area of Gazipur collapsed after the explosion and injured 74 workers.
The government or the international community also did not follow the norms in forming a committee or fund to compensate the families of the deceased and injured victims.
Following the tragic incident, the Gazipur district administration and Gazipur BSCIC Factory Owners Association paid the victims Tk 20,000 each for transportation of the dead bodies and other immediate expenses.
The BSCIC (Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation) Factory Owners Association did the same for the families of the victims also.
“We did not receive any compensation from the government or the owners of the Tampaco Foils factory,” said Bazlur Rahman, brother-in-law of Jahangir Alam, who died in the explosion while serving Tampaco as a security guard.
“We received Alam's dead body on the day of the incident and have submitted the documents to the government offices for compensation,” Rahman said. They received only Tk 47,000 so far.
Alam, who hailed from Doulatkhan of Bhola district, had been working for Tampaco for over 20 years, Rahman said.
Parveen Akter, whose husband Azim Uddin was one of the deceased, said: “I cannot even think about money as I have not received my husband's dead body yet.”
“We have been waiting for nearly five months. Hopefully, we can get the dead body next week.”
“I am facing uncertainties with the death of my husband. I am unemployed and staying with my father in Magura now,” said Parveen, who got married 11 years back.
Tania Akter, sister of Murad Hossain, another victim of the fire incident, said they are waiting for compensation from the government; they received Tk 20,000 from the Gazipur district office and Tk 20,000 from the BSCIC factory owners association.
Mikail Shipar, labour and employment secretary, said the ministry will pay the victims Tk 200,000 each from the fund of the Bangladesh Workers' Welfare Foundation next week.
“It is taking time to compensate the victims and families for a delay in DNA profiling of some of the victims,” Shipar said.
He said each victim is supposed to get Tk 100,000 in case of industrial accidents under the labour law.
The owner of Tampaco has already deposited money at the court to pay the victims Tk 100,000 each, he said. “We are paying an additional Tk 200,000 to each of the victims from the welfare foundation.”
As Bangladesh did not ratify the ILO Convention 121, which mainly deals with compensation payment for victims in the case of industrial accidents, the victims do not receive an adequate amount of money by the law.
Had Bangladesh ratified the ILO Convention 121, each victim in case of industrial accident would have received compensation under the rules of loss of future earnings.
Shipar said no international retailer or brand came forward to help the victims of Tampaco, as was the case with the Tazreen Fashions fire and Rana Plaza building collapse. As a result, some victims received Tk 40 lakh while some received as low as Tk 10 lakh.
In connection to compensation payment and formation of a fund for the Tampaco victims, the ILO's Dhaka office said the primary responsibility lies with the employer and overall monitoring by the Bangladesh government.
“The incident clearly highlights the need to establish a national Employment Injury Protection and Rehabilitation scheme that would provide compensation to all workers in the event of a workplace accident in line with ILO Convention 121 on workplace injury,” Srinivas Reddy, ILO country director, told The Daily Star in a mail last week.
“ILO is currently working closely with the government of Bangladesh in collaboration with government of Germany to establish such a scheme and incidents such as Tampaco not only highlight the urgency of these efforts but also the need to create a stronger culture of preventative safety in all industrial sectors.”
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