Radioactive lift buttons traced to a Pune unit

The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board has traced to a Pune unit the lift buttons that were removed from hundreds of elevators in France after they were found to be radioactive, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Oct 27, 2008, 23:42:31 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board has traced to a Pune unit the lift buttons that were removed from hundreds of elevators in France after they were found to be radioactive. The source of scrap is yet to be found.

Last week, France had asked elevator maker Otis to remove India-made lift buttons from hundreds of elevators after 20 workers were found to have been exposed to radiations.

The exposure was of Level 2 on the one to seven levels of exposure, with one being the lowest.

Sweden, too, has complained of radioactive traces in recycled steel imported from India.

The atomic safety body on Thursday ordered an inquiry to trace the source of radioactive substance in the scrap.

“We have found that Vipras Casting in Pune had manufactured buttons used in lifts in France. We’re trying to unravel the long chain to find the source of the radioactive scrap,” said Satpal Aggarwal, head of the radiological safety unit at the board.

Indian recycled steel is in great demand in the West following a steep rise in international prices. The business is now worth $ 50 billion.

While the business has grown, the country lacks the mechanism to check radioactive hazardous waste from entering the scrap market. “Like western countries, there is no condition for decontamination of scrap in India,” said Gopal Krishna, head of NGO ToxicsWatch.

Apart from local recyclers, a major source of recycled steel is ship-breaking industry in Alang in Gujarat, the second biggest such yard in the world.

The atomic board’s investigations also revealed that the lift buttons sent to France were not checked for radioactivity. “Even the scrap that comes to these unit is not checked for presence of any radioactive material. Similar incidents can happen elsewhere too,” Aggarwal said.

The lift buttons were contaminated with Cobalt 60, produced from decay of minerals like nickel used in industrial jobs. Export of Cobalt 60 is now allowed under International Atomic Energy Agency regulations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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