2 youths die while working on power lines in Shimla, Sujanpur
Two youths were electrocuted while working on electricity lines in Shimla and Sujanpur on Monday. While 28-year-old Pankesh Kumar was a regular employee of the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Limited (HPSEBL), 27-year-old Sushil Kumar was engaged on an outsource basis through a service provider in the maintenance gang.
While both the youth died doing a similar work, the compensation and social security benefits to the families of the deceased offered by the electricity board will vary significantly.
While the family of Pankesh Kumar, the regular employee, will get a compensation of Rs 10 lakh and pension or a job, the family of the outsourced employee will get just Rs two lakh. And his family will not be entitled to any job or pension benefit. And given that outsourced employees get merely Rs 10,000-12,000 per month, there will be no savings on which Sushil’s wife and daughter can fall back on.
There’s a provision for compensation for the deceased’s family under the Employee Compensation Act, but that too wouldn’t be much due to the low monthly salary of the deceased. “Also, one doesn’t get it easily as it involves a lot of litigation in the court. In the last three years, five outsource employees have died but it’s pending in all five cases so far,” said HL Verma, Secretary of the HPSEBL Employee Union.
Following these two tragic deaths, the union has demanded that the present policy for engaging outsourced employees in the maintenance work be reviewed. “Either the outsourced employees should not be used for work where there’s a threat to life, or they should be provided adequate compensation and social security benefits in the event of such accidents,” said Verma.
Further, the union has pointed out that the 32 HPSEBL staff, including five outsourced employees, have died in fatal accidents over the last three-and-a-half years. “The major reason for the rise in fatal accidents over the past few years is the shortage of staff at the ground level. As per the norms, a team of three persons is required to fix a problem on the line, but now mostly it’s one person who’s handling such complaints, raising the probability of accidents,” said Verma, adding that a high-level committee should be formed to look into the reason for rising accidents.
