Fire and safety engineering in the garment factory of Bangladesh

Abstract

In Bangladesh businesses are growing at an ever fast rate. New businesses are opening everyday in every possible sector. Taking purchasing power parity into account Bangladesh is the 44th largest economy in the world. Bangladesh is also listed in the N-11 (next 11) by the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Among all the industries, at present textiles and readymade garments‟ industry are the top ones. Recently WTO has ranked Bangladesh as the 4th largest exporter of readymade garments‟ in the world. This sector contributes for 75% of foreign currency earning for Bangladesh. Textiles and Readymade Garments‟ sector contributes 13% of GDP and employs more than 3,000,000 people. It has bought benefit and blessings for millions of people in the country. This industry has played a significant role in elevating economic and living standard of millions of families all over the country. Along with bringing blessing for the nation, textile and RMG industry also hold the record of experiencing some worst industrial accidents in the country. Taking advantage of poor surveillance of concerned authorities‟ rules, laws and codes are often violated in construction sector of our country and factory buildings are no exception. It is popularly believed and often proven true by incidences that the building codes are only maintained in paper works and hardly during the construction phase. Later as the owner focuses on the interior works, machine placement etc. the floors are often over loaded with machineries, causing more population load during operational hours, narrowing circulation spaces, thus making it difficult for the people to access the emergency route during an emergency. Many factories do not arrange regular drill; therefore the workers discover themselves in an alien situation whenever an emergency situation arises, causing panic, stampede etc. that further escalate the degree of casualty. On the basis of the situation of most recent Bangladeshi factory fire it is very obvious that any person unconscionably may lose his or her life in the name of garment manufacturing any time. In our presentation we will review the current situation of fire and safety in garment factories with respect of the global parameters, their lacking and the modification that has to be made. The common equipments that are being used in our garment factories are Fire extinguishers, Fire sprinklers, smoke alarms. But the structure of the buildings are so poor that fire escape are not that much effective for large number of workers. Besides they do not follow the building code properly. Even the number of equipment used in a garment factories are not that much. In our presentation we will highlight the lacking of equipment being used and needed for the factories, the solution to this problem on our point of view on the basis of current situation of Bangladesh,