Question : FARM ACCIDENTS WITH THRESHERS

(a) whether farm accidents with threshers are reportedly continued to take a heavy price due to its poor design despite the designs and claims of many Agricultural Universities and R and D institutions over the past several decades causing a serious setback to rural development and employment as appeared in the Times of India dated March 28, 2001;

(b) if so, the steps proposed to be taken to ensure that specialised Agricultural engineering institutions at ICAR and Agricultural Universities look into this and fix responsibility in the matter to protect our agricultural workers;

(c) whether a compulsory insurance cover is proposed to be provided to each of such thresher operators; and

(d) if not, the reasons therefor?

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE (DR. DEBENDRA PRADHAN)

(a) No, Sir. The farm accidents due to use of threshers appear to have decreased during the years due to the availability of better designs of threshers and providing proper safety measures, improved designs of feeding chutes etc., formulation of BIS standards on threshers and passing of Dangerous Machine (Regulation) Act by Govt. of India in 1983. This dangerous Machine Act has been implemented in only 4 states namely, Mahdhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. This needs to be implemented in all the states to reduce accidents on the threshers. The R & D Institutions and SAU`s have designed threshers which are safe but some of the threshers manufacturers in the market are not making the threshers as per BIS standards, whereby some accidents are still taking place. Once the Dangerous Machine (Regulation) Act of 1983 is adopted by all the states, this problem will be overcome.

(b) To look into the problems of accidents in Agricultural Machinery and make further design improvements, the ICAR is running an All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Human Engineering and Safety in Agricultural (HESA) with 4 co-operating Centers. This AICRP is involved in carrying out surveys to collect data on agricultural accidents, identify machines causing accidents and to further modify these machines by taking into consideration ergonomics and safety aspects.

It is the responsibility of the States to ensure that the threshers sold in the market conform to BIS standards and it is their responsibility to implement dangerous machines Act 1983 in their respective States.

(c) & (d): There is no separate proposal for insurance cover to be provided on threshers. However, this has been taken care of in section 24 of the Dangerous Machine (Regulation) Act passed by Govt. of India in 1983.

Section 24 of this Act provides for each employer to take out insurance policy providing for contracts of insurance, whereby he is insured against any liability to make payment of compensation to the operator of a dangerous machine (power thrersher in this case).

The progress of enforcement of the Act is reviewed periodically in the Rabi and Kharif Conferences of the Ministry of Agriculture and also through correspondence with the State Governments who are the enforcement agencies for the Act in their respective areas.

It is very important that Dangerous Machine (Regulation) Act be adopted by all the States.