The labour ministry has initiated a move to bring inspection of industrial boilers under DIFE's supervision mainly to ensure workplace safety across the country, officials said.
Though the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) is responsible for ensuring health and safety in the workplaces, its inspectors are not entitled to do the boiler inspection, they added.
Currently, they said, the boiler inspection and registration are done by the Office of the Chief Inspector of Boiler under industries ministry.
A boiler is a closed vessel in which generally water is heated and the vaporized fluid is used in various processes or heating applications.
Boiler is used in almost all industrial units including textile and readymade garment factories, jute mills, cotton mills, fertiliser, paper mills, chemical, pharmaceutical and rice mills.
After the Rana Plaza building collapse, the government upgraded the labour directorate to a full-fledged department with increasing its manpower to 993 from 514 to ensure workplace safety in industrial units across the country, labour ministry officials said.
Though the accountability lies on DIFE when any accident occurs, boiler inspection is not under its jurisdiction, they said, adding it is a must to ensure boiler safety along with other issues for greater workplace safety.
The labour ministry in a meeting on September 22 decided to hold an inter-ministerial meeting with relevant authorities, including industries ministry, to discuss how to bring boiler inspection under the jurisdiction of DIFE, a labour ministry official said.
If needed, the rules of business would be changed in this regard, he added.
The labour ministry has already drafted a boiler guideline that included introduction of boiler, its maintenance, inspection and boiler attendant certification, he said, adding that the guideline would provide required knowledge to inspectors, workers and factory managements about boiler accidents and how to prevent them.
Terming boiler 'risky and accident prone', representatives from Industrial Police in a meeting on September 19 stressed the need for immediate publication of the guideline.
Some of DIFE's inspectors have received two-phases training by boiler experts from Denmark last year. They, later, will provide training to others, meeting sources said.
The industries ministry official, however, informed the meeting that a move has been taken to enhance the boiler department's capacity by increasing its existing manpower.
The necessity of boiler inspection emerged, following one after another accidents in the industrial units, including RMG factories, packaging units and rice mills, claiming many lives, industry people said.
A survey done by Accord last year, a platform of western retailers that is currently working to improve workplace safety in the RMG sector, found all its surveyed 35 boilers were defective.
Some 19 of the 35 inspected boilers could not undergo all stages of inspection, because the boiler equipments at the factories were inadequate or defective, the survey found, revealing the poor status of boilers.
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