Jaipur | April 26, 2016: In a case of both the state and Central governments passing the buck, the Union government in its affidavit on Monday on silicosis prevention among the mines workers in Rajasthan said out of about 33,000 mine licenses issued in the state, only 5,044 come under its jurisdiction and the major part of the work on silicosis prevention had to be done by the state government.

This was informed during the hearing of a PIL at division bench of acting Chief Justice Ajay Rastogi and D C Somai on Monday on the implementation of the recommendation of Human Rights Commission member Dr Devrajan report address the issue of silicosis among mine workers. He had submitted 59 recommendations to the state government to improve the condition of the mine workers and to address the issue of prevalence of silicosis among them.

But the state government in its reply in the last hearing on March 14 had said that most of the recommendation comes under the purview of the union government. The court had then sought an affidavit from both the centre and state in this regard and Centre's reply was in compliance of this order. The court appointed amicus curie S D Khaspuria said in the absence of district level committees as per the recommendations the relatives of labourers had to come to Jaipur SMS hospital in case of death of a labourer due to suspected silicosis to conduct the verification of the death which is pain staking experience for these poor labourers. The court had posted the matter for next hearing on May 16.

(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)