AMARAVATI: The reactor blast in an Eluru chemical industry has once again brought to the fore the failure of the factories department to prevent accidents in firms handling hazardous chemicals in the state.
Eluru deputy chief inspector of factories R Trinatha Rao said Porus laboratories where the reactor blast killed six people in the early hours of Thursday, was inspected by the deputy chief inspector of factories from Vijayawada on June 28 last year. He also made certain safety recommendations, following which the factory management submitted a compliance report. Interestingly, a third party safety audit was also carried out in the factory by Sudheer Kumar Mittal on July 14 and 15, 2021.
The reactor where the blast happened was tested by a competent authority, V Suresh Reddy, and there were no adverse comments. Reddy also assessed the life of the reactor through hydro-testing method during the inspection. However, his recommendations on the life of the reactor is not known. "The temperature and pressure gauges were there, but there was no automatic siren system in the firm," Trinatha Rao told TOI.
Sources said no safety valve or rapture disc were fitted to the reactor as it is not a pressure reactor. "The factories department constituted an internal safety committee comprising employees, mechanical engineers and senior officials. The committee is supposed to inspect the equipments and submit periodical reports to the department. We have received the reports from the safety committee and it was fully analysed," he added.
The state government, it may be recalled, had appointed a high-level third party panel of experts in 2021 following the LG Polymers gas leak in Vizag. The experts panel carried out a comprehensive safety audit of industries dealing with hazardous material and made several recommendations. However, the factories department, which is supposed to ensure the implementation of the recommendations, seems to have been going slow in its work, experts said.
The factories department, sources said, launched a central inspection system (CIS) to carry out random inspections of factories. The software designed by the department would pick up the factories and team of officials from the department to conduct the safety inspections through a draw of lots. As per the system, the deputy chief inspector of factories, who is the competent authority to take up inspections and safety audit in factories, could visit the factories only when mandated by the CIS.
"The system (CIS) was designed to check corrupt practices besides saving the factory managements from the problem of frequent inspections. However, it seems to have compromised on the safety aspect as we could go for inspections when only assigned by the CIS," said a senior official of the department.
