CHENNAI: Six years after the Tamil Nadu government issued a Government Order (GO) to establish a Central Inspection System (CIS) to improve transparency in industrial safety inspections, the state platform remains largely non-functional.
A review of the Tamil Nadu Central Inspection System (TNCIS) by TNIE, carried out in the wake of industrial accidents including the ammonia gas leak in Tiruvallur district on Sunday that claimed 10 lives, showed that no publicly accessible inspection data or reports are available on the portal, raising concerns over regulatory oversight in TN.
In October 2020, the industries department issued the G.O. to create the TNCIS as an integrated online portal to coordinate inspections carried out by the Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health (DISH), Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB), labour department and the Directorate of Boilers.
The order mandated the publication of inspection schedules, allocation of inspectors, and inspection reports to enhance transparency and accountability. It also envisaged the creation of a State-Level Inspection Group to periodically review the system.
The CIS was set up following a directive issued in May 2020 by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and the union finance ministry under the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP), which made it mandatory in all states and Union Territories.
The DISH website, however, now provides only broad statistics on inspections and registered factories without disclosing which industries were inspected, who conducted the inspections, what violations were detected, or whether corrective measures were taken.
The lack of transparency in TNCIS is in stark contrast to several other states. Karnataka’s CIS portal, for instance, publicly displays factory names, inspecting departments, risk categories, inspector details, inspection status and reports. Similar systems have been operational in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala since around 2022.
The issue has come under renewed scrutiny following the ammonia gas leak at St Peter & Paul Sea Food Exports Pvt Ltd in Tiruvallur district on June 21. The incident affected 83 workers and resulted in 10 deaths, most of them migrant labourers from Odisha, Assam, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Kerala.
G Sundarrajan, coordinator of Poovulagin Nanbargal, alleged that the tragedy exposed deeper structural shortcomings in Tamil Nadu’s industrial safety regulatory framework.
“This was not a sudden or unavoidable accident. Workers had repeatedly complained about ammonia leaks at the factory, but the management failed to act. Had industrial safety inspections been carried out rigorously and transparently, the disaster could have been prevented,” he said.
According to official data, TN had 52,614 registered factories employing more than 27 lakh workers as of March 31, 2025. During 2024-25, DISH reported conducting 9,570 regular inspections, 5,965 special inspections and 287 holiday inspections.
However, none of the reports are available in public domain. Poovulagin Nanbargal contended that the prolonged failure to operationalise the portal had allowed inspection processes to remain opaque.
When contacted, Industries Secretary S Vijayakumar said he would look into the matter.
Stricter monitoring of Sipcot chemical units
The Tamil Nadu government has ordered stricter monitoring of industries handling hazardous chemicals in Sipcot parks across the state.
While an official statement in this regard did not directly link the directive to the deadly ammonia leakage at the seafood processing unit in Tiruvallur, Minister for Industries V Keerthana during a review meeting on Wednesday evening instructed officials to undertake daily monitoring of the units handling chemicals and submit regular reports to the headquarters.