Vijayawada: The Factories authorities say they have found glaring violations in the restarting of production at a private firm that is doing extraction and refining of edible oil at Tadepalligudem in West Godavari district.
A recent fire mishap had caused the death of a worker and injured five persons.
Based on a preliminary inquiry, the officials noticed that the Food, Fats and Fertilizers Pvt Ltd failed to conduct a pre-start-up safety review after shutting down the plant for a month and a half for regular maintenance. It also failed to intimate the factories department about restarting the plant after closure as both the tasks are mandatory for the plant.
Earlier, the plant was booked for operating it without obtaining ‘no objection
certificate’ from the fire department during a special drive taken up on
factories in 2020. The authorities booked a case for such a violation and the
case was recently disposed of in the court after imposing a penalty on the
firm.
The factories authorities issued directions for closure of the solvent
fractionation plant-1, where the fire mishap took place, and also ordered closure
of a similar SF-IV plant as a precautionary measure to avoid mishaps.
The factories department says that the plant restarted it on Dec 18 and the fire
mishap took place at a plant on Dec. 21 -- three days after resuming the operation.
The officials say that as the trail run has to be done on the plant after restarting it, to find out any loose nuts and bolts in the machinery and other lacunae in the entire equipment, but the company failed to do so. “This resulted in ingress of air into the system where acetone is used in the form of both liquid and vapour and this might have resulted in sparks leading to fire.
As a worker died and five sustained injuries in the fire mishap, the authorities are
getting ready to inquire about the reasons from the injured persons once their
health condition improves.
Factories deputy chief inspector (Eluru) Trinadha Rao said, “We are going to book the firm for violation of norms before resuming the operations as per the Factories Act, 1948, and we have also ordered closure of another plant for safety
reasons.”
Infographics:
I) In a special drive in 2020 after the LG Polymer’s mishap, the private firm was
caught for rule violations like carrying out the operations without a fire NOC.
2) The third-party safety audit being carried out in 2022 on industries is yet to
cover the private firm.
