EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 70 of 120

Correct — B, (b) Hazardous substances are used or handled. The Safety Committee is created by section 41G of the Factories Act, 1948, headed 'Workers' participation in safety management', and the trigger it names is the nature of the work, not the size of the workforce. Section 41G(1) reads: 'The occupier shall, in every factory where a hazardous process takes place, or where hazardous substances are used or handled, set up a Safety Committee consisting of equal number of representatives of workers and management to promote co-operation between the workers and the management in maintaining proper safety and health at work and to review periodically the measures taken in that behalf.' A proviso lets the State Government exempt any factory or class of factories by order in writing, for reasons to be recorded. Sub-section (2) leaves the Committee's composition, the tenure of its members and their rights and duties to be prescribed. So there are two triggers and the option gives one of them exactly: a hazardous process, or the use or handling of hazardous substances. Neither depends on how many workers the factory employs. A small unit handling hazardous substances must have a Safety Committee; a very large factory doing nothing hazardous need not. That is the whole distinction the question is testing, and it is the distinction a candidate loses by carrying over the numerical thresholds that govern the rest of the Act. Section 41G sits in Chapter IV-A, 'Provisions relating to hazardous processes', which the Act acquired after Bhopal and which runs from section 41A to section 41H: Site Appraisal Committees for the initial location or expansion of a factory involving a hazardous process (41A), compulsory disclosure by the occupier to the workers, the Chief Inspector, the local authority and the general public in the vicinity (41B), the occupier's specific responsibilities including medical examination of workers (41C), the Central Government's power to appoint an Inquiry Committee after an extraordinary situation (41D), emergency standards laid down through the Director-General of Factory Advice Service and Labour Institutes (41E), permissible limits of exposure to chemical and toxic substances as given in the Second Schedule (41F), the Safety Committee (41G) and the workers' right to warn about imminent danger (41H). Read 41G alongside 41H and its purpose is obvious: the Committee is the standing channel through which workers' representatives raise a danger before it becomes an accident.

• (a)1000 or more workers are employed — One thousand workers is the threshold in section 40B, which is about Safety Officers, not Safety Committees. In every factory where one thousand or more workers are ordinarily employed — or where the State Government is of opinion that a manufacturing process or operation involves risk of bodily injury, poisoning, disease or other hazard to health — the occupier must, if so required by the State Government by notification, employ such number of Safety Officers as the notification specifies. A Safety Officer is a qualified employee of the occupier; a Safety Committee is a bipartite body of workers' and management representatives. Different section, different trigger, different thing.
• (c)Heavy machinery is utilized — This is the only option with no statutory anchor at all. The Act does not use 'heavy machinery' as a test for anything. Machinery is dealt with by the safety chapter — fencing of machinery, work on or near machinery in motion, employment of young persons on dangerous machines, self-acting machines, casing of new machinery — and those provisions apply to the machinery described in them whatever its weight. What triggers the Safety Committee is a hazardous process or hazardous substances, which is a question about what is being handled and not about how large the plant is.
• (d)500 or more workers are employed — Five hundred is a real figure in this Act, which is why the option works, but it belongs to welfare rather than to safety. Section 49 requires the occupier of every factory in which five hundred or more workers are ordinarily employed to employ such number of welfare officers as may be prescribed, and section 45(4) requires an ambulance room of the prescribed size, with prescribed equipment and medical and nursing staff, in every factory where more than five hundred workers are ordinarily employed. Neither has anything to do with the Safety Committee, which section 41G ties to hazardous processes and substances alone.

The Factories Act, 1948 fixes obligations in three different ways, and knowing which way a given obligation is fixed is most of what the paper asks about it. Some duties attach to every factory regardless of size — cleanliness, ventilation, lighting, drinking water, fencing of machinery. Some attach above a headcount: a canteen where 250 or more workers are employed, a creche where 30 or more women workers are employed, welfare officers where 500 or more workers are ordinarily employed, an ambulance room where more than 500 are, Safety Officers where 1,000 or more are. And some attach to the nature of the work rather than to any number at all. Chapter IV-A, inserted to deal with hazardous processes, is the clearest example: its obligations follow the hazard. The Safety Committee under section 41G is required wherever a hazardous process takes place or hazardous substances are used or handled, with the State Government able to exempt a factory or class of factories for recorded reasons. A hazardous process is itself defined, in section 2(cb), as a process or activity in relation to an industry specified in the First Schedule where, unless special care is taken, the raw materials, intermediates, finished products, by-products, wastes or effluents would cause material impairment to the health of the persons engaged or result in pollution of the general environment — with the State Government empowered to amend the First Schedule by notification.

This is the EO/AO paper's favourite shape for the Factories Act: a stem that could be answered by a number and an answer that is not a number. Two of the four options are genuine thresholds from elsewhere in the same Act, so the item punishes a candidate who has memorised the Act as a list of figures without noticing which duty each figure belongs to. The habit rewarded is to sort the Act's obligations by their trigger — universal, headcount-based, or hazard-based — before learning any of the figures.

• Factories Act, 1948, section 41G(1) — the occupier must set up a Safety Committee in every factory where a hazardous process takes place or where hazardous substances are used or handled, with equal numbers of representatives of workers and management.
• The Committee's function under section 41G(1) is to promote co-operation between workers and management in maintaining proper safety and health at work and to review periodically the measures taken.
• Proviso to section 41G(1) — the State Government may exempt the occupier of any factory or class of factories from setting up such a Committee, by order in writing and for reasons to be recorded.
• Section 41G(2) — the composition of the Committee, the tenure of its members and their rights and duties are as prescribed.
• Section 40B — Safety Officers, where one thousand or more workers are ordinarily employed, or where the State Government considers a process to involve risk of bodily injury, poisoning, disease or other hazard.
• Section 49 — welfare officers, where five hundred or more workers are ordinarily employed; section 45(4) — an ambulance room where more than five hundred workers are ordinarily employed.
• Section 2(cb) — 'hazardous process' means a process or activity in an industry specified in the First Schedule where, unless special care is taken, the materials or products would impair health or pollute the general environment.
• Chapter IV-A runs from section 41A to section 41H: Site Appraisal Committees, compulsory disclosure, the occupier's specific responsibility, the Central Government's Inquiry Committee, emergency standards, permissible exposure limits in the Second Schedule, the Safety Committee, and the workers' right to warn about imminent danger.

• Answering with a number. Section 41G has no headcount at all; its trigger is a hazardous process or hazardous substances.
• Confusing the Safety Committee under section 41G with the Safety Officer under section 40B, whose threshold is one thousand workers.
• Reading the five-hundred figure as a safety threshold. It belongs to welfare officers under section 49 and, as 'more than five hundred', to the ambulance room under section 45(4).
• Forgetting the proviso. The State Government can exempt a factory or class of factories from setting up a Safety Committee for reasons recorded in writing.

The Factories Act is asked in EO/AO through thresholds and through section headings, and the two are usually combined into one item: a stem taken from a section heading, options taken from thresholds elsewhere in the Act. Build one table of every numerical trigger in the Act with its section, and a second, shorter list of the duties that have no number because they follow the hazard — Chapter IV-A — and both halves of the question are covered.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Factories Act, 1948, Safety Officers are to be employed in every factory wherein the number of workers ordinarily employed is :

  • (a)250 or more
  • (b)500 or more
  • (c)1000 or more
  • (d)2000 or more

  Answer(c) 1000 or more

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Safety Committee constituted under section 41G of the Factories Act, 1948 shall consist of :

  • (a)An equal number of representatives of workers and management
  • (b)A majority of representatives of management
  • (c)Members nominated by the Chief Inspector of Factories
  • (d)Representatives of the recognised trade union alone

  Answer(a) An equal number of representatives of workers and management