One Tragedy, Many Questions: What the Sigachi Accident tells us about Industrial Safety in India
Forty lives lost, over thirty-three injured. The blast at Sigachi Industries in Hyderabad isn’t just a headline; it forces us to look at issues of industrial safety in India. But before we look at the broader picture, let’s understand Sigachi Industries a little better.
A Growing Company, A Glaring Gap
Sigachi’s workforce grew from 494 in 2020-21 to 1,428 in 2023-24, nearly tripling in four years. Of these, 429 were non-permanent workers, the rest formal employees.
In its first-ever Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR), the organisation reported no injuries and no deaths in FY23 or FY24. Even training numbers appeared strong: in FY23, 84% of employees and 89% of workers were trained in health and safety. By FY24, these numbers improved to 93% and 94%, respectively. There were also no complaints reported on working conditions or safety in either year.
Yet, despite all these positive indicators, something went terribly wrong. And that’s what makes this tragedy all the more unsettling.
Industrial Safety in India: Some progress, but a long way to go
Unfortunately, Sigachi isn’t a one-off case. Between 2008 and 2021, data from the Labour Bureau shows that nearly 10,000 workers died and around 60,000 were injured in factories across India. That means, on average, one worker dies every 12 hours, and one gets injured every 2 hours. And these are just the reported numbers; the real figures may be even higher.
But here’s the problem: different government sources report different numbers. The data collected by the Directorate General of Factory Advice Service & Labour Institutes (DGFASLI) from states doesn’t match what the Labour Bureau reports.
Then there’s the NCRB’s Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) report. It also tracks factory/machine accidents. Between 2008 and 2021, it recorded about 17,000 accidents, with nearly 12,000 deaths and over 6,000 injuries.
These all point to a deeper issue: we don’t even have a clear, unified picture of the problem.
As India dreams bigger and positions itself as a global manufacturing hub, workplace safety cannot be an afterthought.
For more data on industrial safety and company-reported BRSRs, explore Dataful.