Saturday | 11 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Saturday | 11 January 2025 | Epaper

Fire safety management in RMG sectors

Published : Wednesday, 19 April, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 1282
Rana Dutta
In the arena of global Ready Made Garment (RMG), Bangladesh has already achieved the prestigious second position and now aspiring to hold the first one within the few years and will be the hardest competitor with its immense potentialities in the coming global RMG battle by establishing its dominating approach towards the world RMG manufacturers as a global icon. Nevertheless, the frequent fire tragedies in the readymade garments industry have become a common phenomenon in Bangladesh which has drawn our attention to stimulate our sleeping eyes and to think something special and effective one to mitigate.
Therefore, it is greatly urged to have a sustainable fire safety management system in our readymade garments industry. Bangladesh government, BKMEA, BGMEA and other international organizations are giving their efforts to establish a hundred per cent compliant RMG sector within the couples of years. Safety issues have given the prime emphasis to ensure its eye-catching development.
Now, the question is, do RMG manufacturers really think about the fire safety management? Do they really care?
Due to a lack of general understanding and awareness of compliance issues, safety management sometime goes to the dogs and so, it makes us to think a little bit more than we imagine. The working condition and fire safety management in our factories are not what we expect. Despite a number of initiatives to curb fire accidents in the garment industry, there are still a significant number of fire occurrences in this industry and so, today's RMG is suffering little or more from the safety fever.
 In this regard, an effective fire safety management is highly desirable to minimize safety related workplace hazards. Therefore, a sustainable fire safety management has become a time demanding fact; an effective approach in the 21st century to ensure hazards free working environment, where employees and the workers can give concentrate on their respective jobs with a smiling face.
We need a sustainable fire safety policy. A sustainable fire safety policy consists of five vital components. Such as, general statement, employee's duties, communication, procedures and emergency evacuation plan.
General statement of the employees is a part of fire safety policy which plays a significant role to make our working environment safe and secured because. Employees are the driving source of ensuring workplace safety and their wholehearted cooperation paves the way of self-awareness amongst the workers and creates a feeling of possessiveness of their own organization from where they earn their livelihood with their hard labour. This is why self-commitment to the organization and self-dedication to the work are two important elements of general statement that inspire us to execute our duties seriously.
Effective fire safety management is no more an isolated issue rather it has become an integral part of a safety policy. It is a matter of great thinking that today's RMG is haunted by safety issues; fire can cause both financial loss and significant damage to a company's image and public relations.
Sustainable fire safety management is the keystone of managing an economically viable business. Here, communication is a must to accelerate the safety management smoothly and effectively in our readymade garments industries. All employees will be kept informed if there are any relevant changes to fire safety procedures.
Every operation within any organization has its own value and also has an impact on the safety not only of those undertaking and managing the work but also of others who may be affected by their work activities.
The failure of safety management often results in death or injury, chronic ill health, damage to property and the working environment too. Therefore, communication within the workers and the employees has a crucial impact on the entire safety management system which can either establish a healthy safety management or to disrupt safety belt controlling system depending on its proper management procedure.
Fire risk assessment has become a mandatory task to ensure an effective fire safety policy in our readymade garments industry. Risk assessment denotes to a systematically critical evolution of a premises which has been carried out for the purpose of determining the likelihood of a fire occurring and causing harm to people in and around the premises and also to prescribe an effective solution of recovery. The purpose of fire risk assessment is to design and determining the efficiency of existing fire precautions in the action plan to reduce fire risk to a tolerable level.
To execute the process, we need to assign a skilled person who will carry out the internal fire risk assessment procedure so that we can have a comprehensive report on an organization's risk status and its possible effective measures and so, it should be in written.
In case of sudden fire the role of an emergency evacuation plan cannot be described in words and so, it is called the master of fire safety management which strengthens our safety management system to be an effective and a sustainable one.
The emergency preparedness plan should address all potential emergencies that can be anticipated in the workplace and recovery plans.
The effectiveness of response during emergencies depends on the amount of planning, training, and drilling previously performed. Identifying key elements of a fire emergency preparation plan starts with the development of a written plan and it should be provided to all departments and be accessible to all employees.
Manager in charge have to conduct training and drilling to assure that their all employees clearly understand their roles in the fire emergencies. Therefore, a valid fire safety and evacuation plan must detail every element of possibility to happen in the event of a fire and it should be established in a visible place so that all employees can easily observe and understand the real fact.
Factory owners need to be aware first. They need to be prudent enough as a successful entrepreneur by establishing local and international safety laws, rules and standards as well. Let there be "no more fire" slogan, and no repetition of 'Tazreen-incident' in Bangladesh.
Rana Dutta is Assistant Deputy Secretary, Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters' Association (BKMEA)





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