Visakhapatnam: Non-compliance to the safety guidelines by the pharmaceutical units at the Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City (JNPC) remains to be a concern with only 52 per cent of them fulfilling prescribed safety and maintenance norms. The pharma units located in JNPC have been witnessing accidents often in the last couple of years. These industrial accidents are affecting the workers as well as residents in the nearby locality, who get exposed to harmful gases quite often.
Labour, employment and factories minister Pithani Satyanarayana also expressed concern that about half of the units have only taken safety measures, during his speech at a seminar held recently on "Chemical safety and disaster mitigation in pharma industry in Vizag." He stressed on the need to have safety audit of the units once in every six months. However, lack of stringent action against the violators is attributed to the violation of the safety norms. The JNPC was developed at Parawada area in Vizag city limits in 2,400 acres and a total of 92 pharmaceutical units are operating in it.
The value of pharma exports from JNPC has been increasing and the total strength of the JNPC is about 22,000. However, frequent accidents in JNPC have raised serious concern among the people about their safety. They slammed the officials for lack of proper disaster management plans. Apart from the district, Srikakulam and Vizianagaram have been housing nearly 3,200 industrial units, with a majority of them being pharma units.
Secretary, Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board, B.S.S. Prasad said prioritising safety would be the best way to resolve pollution issues. Over 30 industrial accidents have claimed lives of 25 people and 63 people were injured in JNPC, so far. The managements of these pharma units reportedly are not taking safety measures and some units are operating with skeletal staff and producing drugs using sub-standard material.
