Gas leak fallout: CPCB asks industrial units across India to go for safety and hazard audit before resuming operations

NEW DELHI: In the backdrop of two gas leak incidents this week, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has asked industrial units across the country to go for a “proper safety and hazard audit” of plants before resuming operations during lockdown 3.0 or post-lockdown period and instructed state pollution control boards for “immediate compliance” of its six-point directives.
Many industrial units resumed their operations post-lockdown 2.0, beginning May 4.While first gas leak incident took place in a paper mill in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh on May 6, the second accident occurred the next day in a Vizag-based factory that saw death of 11 people after inhaling poisonous gas.
Referring these cases of chemical leakage and industrial mishaps, the CPCB in its directives asked the state pollution control boards/committees (SPCBs/PCCs) to ensure that all safety equipment in industrial units and, effluent treatment plants and machineries be kept in “good operable conditions before resuming operations in present Covid-19 situation”.
Under the directives, sent by the CPCB chairman Ravi Shanker Prasad to heads of all states/UTs pollution control boards/committees on late Friday evening, it
would be the responsibility of the states/UTs pollution watchdogs to closely monitor the situation and ensure that the “environmental norms are not violated by any unit”.
The CPCB also said the states/UTs boards would direct all industrial units that manufacture, store or import hazardous chemicals to “resume their operations after Covid-19 lockdown, only after they have taken adequate and necessary steps to prevent the occurrence of any chemical leakage/accident”.
Preliminary findings on the Vizag gas leak incident noted that the accident appeared to have taken place due to the company management’s haste to re-start the plant by allegedly ignoring protocol of doing maintenance before resuming operations.
The gas leak in Shakti pulp and papers mill in Chhattisgarh’s Rajgarh district, on the other hand, took place when an open recycling chamber was being cleaned before resuming operations. Seven workers had fallen ill after inhaling gas at the paper mill.
“The SPCBs/PCCs shall ensure that all the units shall take utmost care in handling hazardous chemical by using trained manpower,” said the CPCB in its directive, adding that these boards or committees will also direct all such units to ensure “safety of workers and residents in the vicinity”.
Under the central directives, the SPCBs/PCCs will ensure that any unit involved in the manufacture, storage and Import of hazardous chemicals would comply with the stipulated provisions of the Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemicals Rules, 1989 and the Chemical Accidents (Emergency Planning, Preparedness and Response) Rules, 1996 “without fail”.