"IIT-Roorke has carried out a study to look into the functioning of DGFASLI and it already submitted the report last week with the Ministry of Labour," DGFASLI Director General S K Saxena said here today on the sidelines of the sixth All India Workshop for Competent Persons (Dock Workers Safety).
"Among the major recommendations, the institute has preferred to offer more financial and recruitment autonomy to us. If government accepts, it will help us greatly in carrying out our activity," he said.
The department is currently under-staffed. Officials said currently 50 per cent of the officers' posts are vacant. "We are operating under tough staff crunch," Saxena said.
Speaking about port docks safety, Saxena said that the department has asked all the 12 major ports to carry out a detailed study on their transport system. "In the last dock workers' safety, health & welfare advisory meeting it was decided that all the ports had to carry out a study on transport system as 50 per cent of all accidents are transport-related," Saxena said.
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DGFASLI said the study would be mandatory and hopes to complete the process in the next one year. On dock accidents, Saxena said that though the number of total accidents were coming down, it was not the same for fatal accidents and thus they were taking several measures to improve the situation.