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Vizag tragedy fresh on mind, UP orders safety check of all hazardous units
The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered inspection of all hazardous and chemical factories to ensure they have all the necessary safety mechanism in place.
A week after the leakage of toxic styrene gas from the LG Polymers chemical plant in Visakhapatnam claimed 12 lives; the Uttar Pradesh government has ordered inspection of all hazardous and chemical factories to ensure they have all the necessary safety mechanism in place.
The government has asked the labour commissioner and the director, boiler, to get the inspection completed and submit the report in three days.
The boiler department, on its part, has issued fresh guidelines to all such industrial units asking them to ensure their compliance for the safety of workers and others.
“As the state government is allowing industries graded exit from the Covid-19 lockdown, the gas leakage at the LG Polymers plant in Visakhapatnam has apparently caused concern because the tragedy happened during the course of efforts to restart it after lockdown relaxations,” a senior labour department official said.
Referring to the Vizag gas leak, principal secretary, Suresh Chandra on Saturday wrote a letter to the labour commissioner asking him to get safety measures checked in all the hazardous industrial units.
“I have been directed to ask you to ensure immediate inspection of safety measures in all the chemical factories and the factories that are using boilers and brief the government of action taken in three days,” Chandra has said in his letter.
Sources said the labour department had begun inspection after identifying hazardous industrial units, including thermal power plants.
A day after the government’s order, the UP boiler inspection department also issued detailed instructions for safe operation of boilers asking industries to avoid any structural alteration, addition or repair of the boiler without prior permission.
They also said the boiler must not be used at a pressure greater than the pressure allotted in the certificate and safety valve of boilers must not be set to a pressure to such maximum allowable pressure.
“The boiler must be operated with utmost care. In case of any discrepancy observed during operation, boiler must be stopped immediately to avoid any mishap,” said instructions issued by director, boiler, SK Gupta.
There are also general instructions issued in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, like regular sanitization of boiler premises, ban on chewing paan/gutkha and spitting in the boiler premises and mandatory medical insurance of all the staff working on boilers.
UP, according to sources, is extra cautious in view of a massive boiler explosion in the NTPC’s Unchahar thermal plant in November, 2017. More than 30 employees working on the boiler were killed.
