Occupational safety and health rights organisations have described the electrocution of eight workers during road construction in Jhunjhunu district, Rajasthan, as a preventable killing caused by criminal negligence, saying the incident was not an accident. In a press statement, the groups said, “We, the undersigned organizations working on Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Rights of workers in India, express our deep anguish and outrage at the tragic death of 8 workers who were electrocuted while constructing a road in Jhunjhunu district, Rajasthan.”
The statement, signed by Jagdish Patel, National Coordinator of the Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India, said, “A high-tension line does not fall on workers. Workers are sent to work under a live HT line without shutdown, without permit-to-work, without insulated tools and PPE, without training. This is not an accident, it is a worksite homicide.” The organisations demanded an independent, time-bound and public investigation under judicial oversight, with an FIR under Section 106 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and relevant provisions of the Electricity Act against the principal employer, the PWD/Engineering Department, the contractor and officers of the Electricity Distribution Company who authorised road work under a live HT line without electrical safety clearance. They said the investigation report must be made public within 30 days.
On compensation, the statement said families must receive “statutory compensation as a LEGAL RIGHT, not charity,” as mandated under the Employees’ Compensation Act, 1923, amended in 2017, calculated on age and wages, amounting to Rs 15-20 lakh per deceased worker, plus funeral expenses and interest for delay, plus full benefits under the BoCW Welfare Board, ESIC and EPFO. “We strongly reject the practice of announcing Rs 2 lakh from CM Relief Fund. That is public money paid by the State Government, not by the employer,” the statement said, adding that the employer pays nothing except perhaps a bribe to get the contract or dilute the FIR after the accident. The organisations also demanded criminal accountability against the principal employer, contractor and concerned government officers, and publication of data on construction deaths and electrical accidents by the Labour Department, Rajasthan, the Chief Electrical Inspector, Rajasthan, and the Central Electricity Authority.
Calling the Jhunjhunu deaths part of a larger crisis, the statement said, “This is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a national governance failure.” It cited the ILO Decent Work-Safe Work Report presented in 2005, which noted that India officially reported only 222 fatal accidents while the ILO estimated the true figure at over 40,000. It also cited the British Safety Council (India) Report released in Mumbai on 20 November 2017, based on ILO numbers and a study by Dilipkumar Patel and Kumar Neeraj Jha, stating that about 48,000 workers died in India in 2016 due to occupational accidents, with 38 fatal accidents every day in the construction sector alone, contributing 24.20% of all occupational fatalities. The statement said workplace deaths in India are 20 times higher than in Britain, which reported only 137 deaths in 2016, and that the ILO estimates 2.93 million workers die every year from occupational accidents and diseases globally, while its 2023 report on psychosocial risks estimates 8.4 lakh deaths per year due to work-related psychosocial risks alone. It added that in 2024 alone, IndustriALL reported at least 240 workplace accidents in India, with over 400 dead and 850 seriously injured.
The organisations also highlighted the economic cost of unsafe work, citing ILO estimates that work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths cost about 4% of global GDP annually, and 1.37% of global GDP due to psychosocial risks alone. For India, they cited the Safe in India (SII) Report 2025, which put annual productivity loss due to workplace injuries alone at Rs 12.5 lakh crore, or 4.2% of national GDP. “Today it is cheaper to let a worker die because the State pays Rs 2 lakh as charity from public money,” the statement said, adding, “Until Employees’ Compensation Act is strictly enforced, safety will never be invested.”
The statement further said that despite Section 53 of the BoCW Act, 1996, mandating notification of all fatal and non-fatal construction accidents, no official data on construction deaths and injuries for the entire country is published by any State or Central Government. “If deaths are not counted, deaths do not count,” it said, noting that despite Section 161 of the Electricity Act, 2003 and CEA regulations mandating notification and inquiry of every electrical accident causing death, Chief Electrical Inspectors do not publish annual reports on electrocution deaths, inquiries and action taken. It cited NCRB data showing deaths due to electric shocks and fires rose from 2,957 in 1990 to 15,258 in 2020, and said Electrical Inspectors in States are heavily understaffed, with Delhi having only 10 inspecting staff headed by one Electrical Inspector for the entire NCT. It also said the OSH Code, 2020 has failed to create enforcement machinery for construction, most States have never appointed dedicated full-time BoCW Inspectors, and as per the DGFSAL Annual Report 2022 only 67.58% of sanctioned inspector posts were filled at the all-India level with just 953 sanctioned inspectors.
The organisations said, “A country which cannot protect its working people poses a serious question on governance. GDP growth built on 48,000 dead bodies per year is not growth.” They called upon the Government of Rajasthan, the Ministry of Labour and Employment, the Central Electricity Authority and the National Human Rights Commission to take suo-moto cognizance of the incident.
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