Jayanta Kr Bhuyan- a case of NEEPCO's negligence

Om Shanti

Date of birth: 01.04.1966.
Date of passing away: 24.06.2008.

The sad demise of Jayanta Kr. Bhuyan is a great shock not only to the family but also to the people of the whole region and his known ones. According to doctors who treated him, the cause of his illness was infection by poisonous gas. Jayanta was involved in digging a tunnel under the mountain in NEEPCO’s Kameng project near Bhalukpung.

Jayanta was a competent and silent worker of NEEPCO (http://www.neepco.gov.in/). in the rank of Assistant Engineer who left behind his wife, also an Assistant Engineer of NEEPCO, and two minor children – one son aged eight years and one daughter just nine months old.

He had fever while at work in Kameng Project. The NEEPCO doctor there diagnosed it as viral fever. As the fever was not going down, he went to his family in AGBP, Duliajan. He was admitted to a nursing home on 21.06.2008 afternoon as he started having problem in breathing and the doctors diagnosed lungs infection. On 23.06.2008. Doctors took fluid sample from his lungs for test. He was still eating and talking normally and no one could even imagine that something so serious is happening to him. In the morning of 24.06.2008, he had acute problem in breathing and was put in ICU with oxygen mask. Later he was put under ventilation system for breathing. Things started deteriorating very fast and he developed Septicemia or Sepsis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepsis). His blood became poisonous and this led to multiple organ dysfunction and low blood pressure. Within hours, the organs started failing very rapidly without leaving any reaction time and he succumbed to death in a very helpless situation.

Death of Jayanta has raised a few big questions to the family members as well as to the people of the locality.

• What exactly has happened? This is not the first case of such kind of demise of worker involved in tunnel work at Khupi project. Just about one week before Jayanta’s demise, another person - Ratul Sarmah from Nagaon, working in the same project died in similar circumstance. There should be a detailed investigation as to what has led to such a tragedies.
  
• Was there lapse of safety precautions? Or failure to do proper medical investigation about health hazard at tunnel excavation site? There are reasons to believe these. Employees of NEEPCO were working in the tunnel without even the minimum safety precaution of wearing masks! This is because they were not aware of any kind of health hazard as no tests/checks were done by NEEPCO before to assess the health hazard that could be associated with tunnel excavation.
  
• What is NEEPCO’s future plan of action? This is not an ordinary situation.
  Will NEEPCO wait till another such incident to take place and thus playing with the lives of hundreds of employees? “Safety First” is the motto of modern day industries. How is NEEPCO preventing repeat of the same kind of incidence?

When contacted by a family member of Jayanta Bhuyan, NEEPCO CMD has told that an enquiry is already ordered and GSI retired professionals are doing an enquiry to find more details. At the same time, blood samples are collected from the employees to check for presence of hazardous substance. However, the point to note here is- will NEEPCO be honest enough to disclose the facts even if when the organisation could be blamed for any lapse? It is very obvious that actual findings won’t be disclosed by the organisation. So, an independent enquiry by a high level team is very important to bring out the truth.

During the talk with Bhuyan’s family members, NEEPCO CMD tried to link the reason of death to diabetics. But the questions here are:

• there are millions of diabetic people in India, but how many of them are dying in the same way of multiple organ failure within just 10 hours of admission into medical treatment??
  
• Why more cases of death are happening to NEEPCO employees working in the same project? Why many casual workers of NEEPCO or contract companies working in the same project are dying without even any one caring about what is happening to them?
  
• What is the value of human life in NEEPCO??

Jayanta Bhuyan was diabetic and had lost his left knee cap in an accident some years back while driving home from work. So he was not suitable for hard area posting for long period. Moreover, hard area postings are generally limited to short period whereas Jayanta had to work in Khupi (Kameng Project) for almost five years.

He was trying for transfer of job place so that he could be together with his children and wife who works in NEEPCO AGBP, Bakuloni. But very surprisingly, he did not get a transfer even when his wife was pregnant. Many superior authorities commented him as a very good and reliable employee- so no one wanted to transfer him from Kameng project. Punishment for good work!! Is that justified??

What falls on the family in his absence is easily understandable to anyone. Loss of a life has multi fold effects not only on the person himself but also on many other lives- wife, children, parents, family members, relatives. Nothing can compensate the loss of a life. The least one could do is to secure the future of the children, ensuring good education and career and reduce burden of the wife in day-to-day life. We appreciate that the NEEPCO CMD transferred Rekha Bhuyan promptly to Guwahati after Jayanta’s family member met him personally. But that is not enough. Will NEEPCO take care of the needs of the family, children’s education and career so that they don’t have to feel his absence at every step?

Negligence of NEEPCO in taking sufficient safety measures has led to this tragic death. Is not it NEEPCO’s responsibility to do their best for the family? If they don’t want to do this much for the family, let them return Jayanta to his children, wife, parents, relatives, friends and colleagues. CAN THEY RETURN JAYANTA?