Three days of surprise inspections conducted by seven teams of officials from various departments revealed massive violations in safety norms in fireworks units, resulting in the suspension of licences of 28 cracker units.
Virudhunagar Collector R. Kannan said that officials from the departments of Revenue, Police, Fire and Rescue, Industrial Safety, Labour and from the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation were part of the teams.
Units sealed
As the inspecting officials found gross violations, the licenses were suspended and the units were sealed. “We will seek explanations from the owners for further course of action,” Mr. Kannan said.
District Revenue Officer R. Mangalaramasubramanian said each team had been mandated with inspecting 10 units every day.
“The violations ranged from lack of attendance register or lack of proper maintenance of register to allowing employees to work outside the working sheds,” he said.
“One of the units in Ramalingapuram was found to have been leased out,” an official said.
Illegal sheds
Non-maintenance of proper records for chemicals stocked, lack of fire fighting equipment, improper way of allowing finished goods to dry were also found. Some of the units had set up illegal sheds for working.
Other violations were misusing of working sheds meant for specific process for some other work, deployment of more workers than the permitted number, improper way of drying black fuses, making different varieties of fireworks that were not permitted under the licensing conditions, and absence of foreman.
A senior official said many cracker units remained shut on Monday when the officials went for inspection.
The DRO said that all the fireworks units would be inspected by teams in the coming days.
The inspections followed two major fireworks accidents reported in the district in February that claimed 29 lives and injured around 50 persons.
