Dear supporters of Safe in India Foundation
We are pleased to provide you our 11th Quarterly Update - this for the latest Mar-Jun19 period.
But first, as the next important step in our journey, we are delighted to invite you to the following public launch events for our Accident Prevention Report “Crushed” that aims to persuade the automobile industry, the Indian government and other stakeholders to take proactive steps:
7th Aug 4-6pm at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) at a panel discussion of senior dignitaries from the industry, government, academia and civic society – Jointly hosted by IIMA and SII, and chaired by Director, IIMA, Prof Errol D’Souza. Here is the invite.
11th Aug 4-6pm in Gurgaon at a similar panel discussion. Details to follow soon.
The main objective of these events is to bring this issue to wider public, industry and government consciousness, and seek constructive solutions. Our Report has received great support: See here a messages from the Minister of Labour and quotes on the Report from various stakeholders including the industry, academia and civic society.
Should you or your friends/colleagues be interested in attending, please get in touch with Ms Chitra Khanna at chitra.khanna@safeinindia.org for details.
Now for a brief update of last quarter:
See the above 8 minute video made recently where 20+ injured workers discuss the reasons for their accidents, challenges after accident, how Safe in India helped them and the positive change in their plans and lives after they receive ESIC compensation. ESIC has the gift to give back a decent life to these injured workers and when they do it, lives improve!
Number of injured workers now assisted by us is close to 2000! And ESIC compensation received by them almost Rs 15 crores. See our latest Impact Report here. We continue to achieve a return of 10x of our cost of operations just by way of worker compensations, not counting other direct impact of advise to thousands of workers on health-care and ESIC processes, and much more substantially in indirect impact through systemic changes in ESIC services and accident prevention for lakhs of workers.
We continue to receive increasing support from DG ESIC and their national and regional (Gurgaon) teams to implement our recommendations for improvement in their services though there is a long way to go. Eg. An internal check-list for ESIC staff has been introduced to reduce errors and an ESIC Health-Book and Welcome Pack is being designed, with our support, for 10 crore+ workers and their families by ESIC to improve communication and services!
Our mission of finding solutions to prevent accidents in factories continues by means of engagement with the three regional auto-manufacturers (Maruti, Honda and Hero) and various departments and agencies of the Government (Labour Secretary, DG FASLI, ISH, ESIC, etc) since Feb2018. None of them have objected to the findings of our Report “Crushed” and they all in-principle agree to take actions.
We are pleased to see that Maruti-Suzuki has started taking a few actions and Honda has promised action soon. The details of this will be communicated in the above Report launch. We will push for a joint industry task force with involvement of the government, SIAM and ACMA.
We are thankful to the Ministry of Labour and Employment to give instructions to DG FASLI to conduct of trainings for workers in the automotive supply chain and start a working group to help prevent these accidents.
We are in the final phases of our study of Power Press legal breaches in these factories under the Indian Constitution and factory Law, and recommendations which will result in concrete recommendations to the stakeholders including workers later this year.
We are also conducting a study of compliance by 6 automobile manufacturers (Maruti, Honda, Hero, Eicher, Mahindra and Bajaj) with recently launched Indian National Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC) that require auto-brands to be responsible for the conduct of their supply chain. We have found a number of good practices and gaps, and are seeking clarifications from these six. We are pleased that Eicher has already responded and we are following up with others. We hope to publicly report our findings and recommendations later in the year.
Help us do more for the Indian Worker Community that makes the cars and two-wheelers we use everyday.
Donations: Our work is complex, endless and long term. We raise our funding only from Indian citizens. Should you wish to support financially, click here for donation information and confirm your donation to team@safeinindia.org. This is an initiative started by three alumni of IIMA91, supported by the batch of IIMA91, and receives further support from various alumni of IIT Roorkee and IIMs and others. See our wall of supporters here. Your time and Contacts: See the number of areas here you can help us with.
Your thoughts and suggestions are welcome at team@safeinindia.org. Please share this blog with your friends and colleagues to spread this message of support to fellow Indians.
Team Safe in India