BANI demands asbestos free schools and public buildings like Calcutta High Court

[Gopal Krishna]

Public Statement 

BANI demands asbestos free schools and public buildings like Calcutta High Court 

December 6, 2024

Responding to an order dated November 26, 2024 by a National Green Tribunal (NGT) bench of judicial member Justice Sudhir Agarwal and expert member Afroz Ahmad, Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) has pointed out that in its submission before the NGT, India's Asbestos Fiber Cement Product Manufacturers Association refers to judgement of 1995 by the Supreme Court in Consumer Education Resource Centre v. Union of India but omits significant part of the directions with regard to ILO resolution concerning Asbestos and the compensation to the certified victims in order to mislead the NGT. 

BANI also pointed out that the Asbestos Fiber Cement Product Manufacturers Association, a cartel of asbestos based companies which has referred to a “National Study on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Environment in Asbestos Cement Product Industries” covering 50 functional asbestos cement product industries of the country carried out by the Directorate General Factory Advice Service and Labour Institutes (DGFASLI) under the Ministry of Labour and Employment. This study found that out of 2603 workers, 10 cases were suspected cases of asbestos related disorders. This study came under scrutiny of a paper entitled “Analysis of the Indian Government’s position on the use of asbestos and its health effects” published in Public Health Action (June 21, 2023) by Dr. R. Singh and Prof. A. L. Frank. The paper concludes that the DGFASLI “study has some potential limitations, including the possibility that disease latency could be a factor, as the presence of disease may only be revealed decades after exposure. Furthermore, there appears to be no record of external peer review by an organisation outside the one conducting the study.”

This dishonest and insincere approach of the asbestos companies and DGFASLI demonstrates "their pre-existing ideological commitment to support corporate interests over worker or community interests."  The Supreme Court in Writ Petition (Civil) No.206 of 1986 had given the following directions on January 27, 1995. It reads: “All the industries are directed 

(1) To maintain and keep maintaining the health record of every worker up to a minimum period of 40 years from the beginning of the employment or 15 years after retirement or cessation of the employment whichever is later;

(2) The Membrane Filter test, to detect asbestos fibre should be adopted by all the factories or establishments at par with the Metalliferrous Mines Regulations, 1961; and Vienna Convention and Rules issued thereunder;

(3)  All the factories whether covered by the Employees State Insurance Act or Workmen's Compensation Act or otherwise are directed to compulsorily insure health coverage to every worker;

(4) The Union and the State Governments are directed to review the standards of permissible exposure limit value of fibre/cc in tune with the international standards reducing the permissible content as prayed in the writ petition referred to at the beginning. The review shall be continued after every 10 yews and also as an when the I.L.O. gives directions in this behalf consistent with its recommendations or any Conventions;

(5) The Union and all the State Governments are directed to consider inclusion of such of those small scale factory or factories or industries to protect health hazards of the worker engaged in the manufacture of asbestos or its ancillary produce;

(6) The appropriate Inspector of Factories in particular of the State of Gujarat, is directed to send all the workers, examined by the concerned ESI hospital, for re-examination by the National Institute of Occupational Health to detect whether all or any of them are suffering from asbestosis. In case of the positive Ending that all or any of them ant suffering from the occupational health hazards, each such worker shall be entitled to compensation in a sum of rupees one lakh payable by the concerned factory or industry or establishment within a period of three months from the date of certification by the National Institute of Occupational Health."  

The members of the India's Asbestos Fiber Cement Product Manufacturers Association have not been complying with these directions of the Supreme Court. They are trying to mislead the Tribunal by withholding the full text of the landmark judgement of the Supreme Court which has recognised right to health as part of fundamental right to health.

The word "Asbestos" has become so notorious that Asbestos Cement Products Manufacturers Association has changed its name to hide the word "Asbestos". Now it calls itself "Fiber Cement Product Manufacturers Association"! But in their naked lust for profit they will have present and future generations of Indians and residents in India including the foreign embassies and foreign visitors whose countries have banned all kinds of asbestos, that foreign asbestos is “safe”. 

Significantly, in Writ Petition (Civil). No. 14729 (W) of 2016, the Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Nishita Mhatre and Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty has passed the verdict observing, “The High Court main building is undergoing repairs with the assistance of the Public Works Department (PWD) of the Government of West Bengal and other Authorities. When the entire renovation is undertaken, it is expected that the High Court and the PWD or, any other body entrusted with the renovation will ensure that the asbestos-sheets, which have been used for roofing, would be replaced by any other materials which are non-carcinogenic.”

Calcutta High Court has recorded that “there is sufficient study material indicating that asbestos sheets used for roofing could cause cancer” and “various documents, issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), and other materials obtained from the Internet, that the exposure to asbestos including chrysotile causes lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis.” It was contended by the petitioner that “the High Court should not continue to use these materials for roofing, especially after legislation in different parts of the world has been enacted on recognizing the potential health risk of asbestos to the citizens at large. Even in India several Acts recognized the fact that asbestos is a health-hazard

Notably, the government of India has banned mining of all kinds of asbestos due to its harmful effect on human health. 

The Asbestos Fiber Cement Product Manufacturers Association will have media, legislatures and courts and residents of India believe that Indian asbestos is unsafe, hazardous, poisonous and harmful but asbestos from Russia, Brazil, Kazakhstan and China is safe, non-hazardous, non-poisonous and harm free.

India is the world’s largest asbestos importer and consumer. As per United States Geological Survey, India used 408,000t in 2021 and 424,000t in 2022. As per Government of India, India imported 436,119t in 2021  and 403,292t in 2022. Indian Minerals Year Book reveals that although India banned mining of all kinds of asbestos including chrysotile asbestos due to its harmful health effect but it continues to import it from China besides Russia, Kazakhstan and Brazil unmindful of the fact that Brazilian court has banned its use in Brazil.

It has been estimated that one person dies from mesothelioma for every 170 tons of asbestos consumed. WHO estimates we have107,000 deaths worldwide per year from occupational exposure to asbestos.If non occupational exposure is added it reaches a figure of about 120,000deaths. Average world consumption/year 30-60 years ago was -- looks like 3/2 of what it is now (2 million metric tons/year). Give India its share of that based on its share of global consumption. At 300,000 tons in 2013, that's about 18,000 deaths (15% of 120,000).  Asbestos diseases have a very long incubation period. So if you are exposed today to an asbestos fibre, you are likely to get the disease in next 10-35 years.

It as been estimated by a Canadian jurist that approximately 50, 000 people die every year due to asbestos related cancer. But so far Government of India and state governments has failed to take a pro-people’s health position and a scientific stand on the import of chrysotile asbestos whose mining is technically banned in India. It is a matter of fact that health is a state subject

Asbestos is like a time bomb to the lungs and Indians will suffer the most.

If it is banned today that does not mean people will not suffer. Because of past usage people will continue to suffer from these diseases.

The Asbestos Fiber Cement Product Manufacturers Association will have all Indians believe that the governmental patronage they are enjoying is not linked to their donations to ruling parties under Section 182 of the Companies Act, 2013.

Since 2002 BANI’s work is dedicated to the implementation of the Court’s directions and the recommendations of ILO and WHO to prevent preventable diseases and preventable deaths by prevention of asbestos trade, manufacture and use. It demands revision of the provisions of the Factories Act, 1948 which declare manufacture, handling and processing of Asbestos and its products as Hazardous Process but do not impose ban on manufacture, handling and processing of asbestos and asbestos based products. It seeks amendment in the Schedule XIV, Section 87 of the Factories Act which deals Dangerous Operation of “Handling and Processing of Asbestos, Manufacture of any Article or Substance of Asbestos and any other Process of Manufacture or otherwise in which Asbestos is used in any Form’ to ensure that India supports listing of chrysotile asbestos under list of hazardous substances as per UN’s Rotterdam Convention. 

BANI demands cancellation of all the environmental clearances and No Objection Certificates given to asbestos based factories and ban on all asbestos based products. It seeks legal and medical relief for the victims of incurable asbestos related diseases caused by primary and secondary exposure. It wants asbestos free schools and hospitals, asbestos free powder, asbestos free water supply pipes and asbestos free vehicles. It demands decontamination of all the public and private buildings including foreign embassies which are ridden with asbestos fibers. The decision making with regard to asbestos must be shifted from the commerce ministry, a promoter of trade in asbestos, to the health ministry, a regulator of health hazards. The latter must be empowered to ensure that it gives precedence to public health.      

In such a context, there is an urgent to take note of:

-Calcutta High Court’s verdict; 

-Resolutions of WHO and ILO (2005 and 2006 seeking elimination of future use of asbestos including chrysotile asbestos worldwide;

-Need to announce the compensation package for present and future victims of asbestos diseases as it has done in the case of Silicosis and make the asbestos companies criminally liable for knowingly exposing citizens and consumers of asbestos products;

-The fact that every international health agency of repute including the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the American Cancer Society agree there is no safe level of asbestos exposure. Most recently, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reconfirmed that all commercial asbestos fibers - including chrysotile, the most commercially used form of asbestos - cause lung cancer and mesothelioma. In addition, IARC newly confirmed that there is sufficient evidence that asbestos causes ovarian cancer and reconfirmed asbestos causes laryngeal cancer;

-The World Health Organisation estimates that asbestos already claims 107,000 lives a year. Even that conservative estimate means every five minutes around the clock a person dies of asbestos related disease. The ongoing use of the asbestos fibre kills at least 300 people every day;

-World Bank's Asbestos Good Practice Guidelines. These Guidelines, as well as its earlier Environmental, Health & Safety General Guidelines, require that the use of asbestos must be avoided in new construction in projects funded by the World Bank around the world. The Guidelines also provide information on available safer alternatives to asbestos;

-Human biology is same everywhere if the asbestos is deemed hazardous in the developed countries; it must be deemed so in West Bengal too;

There is abundance of incontrovertible adverse health effects asbestos based plants and products which create a compelling logic for the phase out of all kinds of asbestos including white chrysotile to protect the lives of present and future generations.

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For Details: Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI), www.asbestosfreeindia.org