‘Laxity and negligence by company led to blast’
Vasco/Panaji : The Verna police on Wednesday registered an offence against officials of Zuari Agro Chemicals Limited and Bokaro Industrial Works as well as a site in-charge in connection with the death of three workers in a blast that occurred on Tuesday.
The offence has been registered under sections 336 and 304 (A) of the Indian Penal Code, Verna police inspector Diago Gracias said, adding that strict action will be taken against the officials responsible for the incident.
Families of the three dead workers are expected to come to Goa on Thursday, and the postmortem on the bodies will be done after the arrival of the kin.
The three workers lost their lives on Tuesday afternoon after a blast took place at an ammonia condensate tank at a plant of Zuari Agro Chemicals Limited at Zuarinagar.
In a related development, the inspectorate of factories and boilers in its preliminary investigation report disclosed laxity, complacence and negligence by the company as the cause of the blast.
As per the preliminary probe by the inspectorate, there was no supervision from the Zuari Agro Chemical side on the work carried out by contract labourers.
Furthermore the company got complacent as the job was routine, and has been undertaken over the years.
Chief inspector of factories and boilers Vivek P. Marathe told ‘The Navhind Times’ that the company was found to be lax in not having trained engineers on site and complacent in not following safety measures, while the negligence was on account of not following instructions.
He explained, “A contractor was given the work of removing bolts from the manhole at the top of the tank. Workers were given cold permit where no hot work could be done. However, they used gas cutting machines and when they tried to light the torch at the top of the tank the explosion occurred.”
According to the initial probe, the presence of trained engineers of the company would have stopped the workers from using gas cutters.
The company uses contract workers for all types of skilled and unskilled jobs and since the plant was under shutdown there may have been more contract workers doing the job.
A full investigation by the inspectorate into the blast is presently going on.
“The detailed report will take about 15 days. Unless the company submits the information we cannot compile the final report. The company will be issued a show-cause notice for violations by the management. Further a case will be filed with the judicial magistrate of first class, Vasco, for the offences,” Marathe said.
Factories and Boilers Minister Nilkanth Halarnkar said the prima facie probe into the blast found lapses on part of the company’s processes, adding that his department would carry out a thorough investigation into the tragedy.