VISAKHAPATNAM: Director of Factories G. Bala Kishore on Tuesday said that the government was planning to establish Industries Emergency Response Systems (IERS) across the State in the public private partnership (PPP) mode to prevent accidents.
Admitting that the number of accidents had come down drastically following a special drive launched in 2013 after the city witnessed several accidents in quick succession, he said that the first IERS would be started at Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City in Parawada, about 50 km from here.
The Parawada centre will be a model unit. Later, similar systems will be set up at Atchutapuram near AP State Economic Zone and Brandix India Apparel City, and at Pydibhimavaram in Srikakulam district where several pharma units have come up. In the second phase, such systems will be developed at Sri City, Tada, Kakinada and Nellore.
Salient features
Mr. Kishore said the systems would be equipped with 24x7 monitoring of various parameters and centralised command control mechanism. The systems will have specialised manpower on round-the-clock duty. CCTV and drone cameras will be deployed to get latest information on emissions being made by the factories. “Once full-fledged systems are developed, we will be in a position to prevent several avoidable accidents,” he said in an exclusive interview to The Hindu .
Mr. Kishore, who was here to take part in a two-day workshop on safety excellence for business sustenance in the API industry being organised jointly by the Department of Factories and the State unit of National Safety Council, said their approach was not to penalise the industries.
“Prosecution is the last resort as we are focusing on education, persuasion and motivation of the managements and workers to adhere to safety norms and prevent accident. We want all of them to treat accidents, wherever they are happening, as a wake-up call and take required precautions,” he stated.
Safety audit
He said that Visakhapatnam had emerged as a hotspot as it was the State’s largest industrial and pharma hub. Due to major accidents at HPCL Visakh Refinery, Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City and other places, they conducted a safety audit following which ranking had been given to various industries based on the threat perception.
Mr. Kishore said that despite shortage of manpower and funds, they were trying to ensure better implementation of the safety mechanism by constantly interacting with the industries and reviewing their safety apparatus.
