But for the powers that be, the condition that makes it mandatory for factories to contact the boiler inspector within 24 hours of a mishap -- the only way he can inspect the boiler to determine the cause of the accident -- is apparently meant to be observed in the breach. That is probably why, almost four years after the post was instituted, the boiler inspector at Vapi is still without an office or a telephone.

And because there is no space he can call his own, industries in the region are as good as exempt from the 24-hour condition stipulated in the Indian Boiler Act, 1923. The inspector considers himself lucky if he gets a tip from the Factory Inspectorate.

Consider last week, when four workers were injured in a boiler blast at Mangalam Drugs and Organics Limited in Vapi. The official apparently inspected the boiler a full 36 hours after the blast, obviously after reading about the accident in the Press.

Earlier, the Valsad district was under the Surat office's jurisdiction. The rapid spread of chemical units, paper mills and sugar factories in the Vapi-Sarigam-Navsari-Valsad stretch led to the bifurcation of the office in March 1996, but only on paper.

The first incumbent for the post was housed in a corner of the labour department's office in Vapi; secretarial help, too, was borrowed off the department whenever convenient. His successor, too, is spending his term in the same conditions.

If that is not adverse working conditions enough, the incumbents have to make a weekly trip to Surat to update records. There is simply no space in Vapi to store the records, which have to be maintained, under the IBA, from the commissioning date of a boiler to the moment it is reduced to scrap and must accompany it wherever it goes. There are 327 boilers in various units between Maroli and Umargam.

While in Surat, the officer has to jostle for space with eight others in a 125 square feet room. But at least there's space to store the records.

According to Chief Boiler Inspector D C Gaur, ``We have been sincerely trying to find a place for the Vapi officer, but all our efforts so far have failed. So we have no option but to relax the 24-hour clause binding on industries elsewhere''.

He, however, maintains that the inspector can be reached easily. ``No unit has ever complained, '' he says. They won't, he knows.