Terminator redux? Robot kills man at Manesar factory
Rao Jaswant Singh & Sanjay Yadav
Gurgaon:
TNN
It seems straight out of a Terminator film. In a rare incident of a robot harming a human being, a machine pierced a worker to death in Gurgaon when he moved too close to its robotic arm while adjusting a metal sheet on Wednesday .
The victim was rushed to nearby ESI hospital but was declared dead by doctors.Ramji Lal, 24, a native of Unnao district in Uttar Pradesh, had reportedly been employed as a loader with SKH Metals, an auto ancillary company , at IMT Manesar for the past oneand-half years.
Lal was working in a welding facility equipped with special-purpose welding machines and robotic welding lines.Around 63 workers and 39 robots were working at the time of the incident.
A co-worker said, “The ro bot is pre-programmed to weld the metal sheets lifted by it.During production, a metal sheet got dislocated and Lal re ached from behind the robot to adjust it. However, the pre-pro grammed robot pierced Lal's abdomen with welding sticks Another worker claimed tha if Lal had gone from the fron instead of the back, the acci dent could have been averted.
Kuldeep Janghu, genera secretary of Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union alleged the ac cident occurred due to the management's negligence “No efforts have been made to make them (robots) acciden proof,“ he said. We want compensation and a thorough inqui ry into the incident. The union also wants safety measures put in place for all units using robots, he added.
According to the Manesar police, the preliminary investigation shows the deceased went too close to the machine and got trapped, getting pierced by the robotic arm and dying on the spot. “We are looking at CCTV footage and gathering information from workers and the company ,“ a police official said.
Assistant commissioner of police Rajesh Kumar said the management and the contractor have been booked on charges of causing death due to negligence. The deceased lived in Aliyar Dhana village near Manesar in a rented accommodation with his wife and four sisters. He had got married around a year ago.Such fatalities are rare as robots are generally kept in enclosures to prevent contact with workers. On June 29, a worker at a Volkswagen factory in Germany died after a robot grabbed him and crushed him against a metal plate.
-- Edited by Admin on Saturday 15th of August 2015 02:53:57 PM
