Junk Boilers Act and relook Seventh Schedule

Boilers, that is, steam boilers, have been important enough to engage the attention of both Union and state governments. Boilers figure as entry no. 37 in the Concurrent List. I don’t think anyone paid much attention to boilers in Constituent Assembly debates. Boilers figured in the “Concurrent Legislative List” (entry no. 21) of Government of India Act, 1935, and got included in the Seventh Schedule by default. In Government of India Act, 1919, boilers figured in the list of provincial subjects, but warranted no separate entry. They were simply mentioned as a sub-head under industrial matters (entry 26), along with “factories, settlement of labour disputes, electricity, gas, and smoke nuisances”. Between 1919 and 1935, boilers increased in importance. It is easy to see why. The Indian Boilers Act of 1923 was passed “to consolidate and amend the law relating to steam-boilers”. This was amended in 2007, and the then Minister of State in Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) moved the Bill, stating, “The Indian Boilers Act of 1923, which this Bill seeks to amend, served its purpose well in the initial years of its operation, but with revolutionary technological changes, with the expansion of the economy, with new technologies becoming available for boiler manufacturers and for boiler component-manufactures as also for users, it was considered necessary to introduce certain necessary amendments to the Bill to make it more effective, to lend it efficacy, practicality and a user-friendly ambience.”