Industrial safety audit on in Telangana; 75 units issued notice for deviations

The audit aimed ensuring the industries adhere to safety protocols besides avoiding untoward incidents had been ordered by IT and Industries Minister K TRamaRao on August 10 in the wake of a few recent industrial accidents, including a gas leak in Visakhapatnam in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. So far, 2,420 units had been inspected out of 5,940 hazardous/red/orange categories of industries, an official release said here.

Notices have been issued after deviations were found in 75 industrial units so far during the ongoing safety audit of all units categorised as 'red' and 'orange' in Telangana, the state government said on Wednesday. The audit aimed ensuring the industries adhere to safety protocols besides avoiding untoward incidents had been ordered by IT and Industries Minister K TRamaRao on August 10 in the wake of a few recent industrial accidents, including a gas leak in Visakhapatnam in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

So far, 2,420 units had been inspected out of 5,940 hazardous/red/orange categories of industries, an official release said here. Deviations were found in 75 units and notices were served by the respective Boilers/Pollution Control Boarddepartments.

This would be a continuing exercise since such industrial safety audits keep the units on high alert and allow the concerned to identify any safety related lapse, if any, in the initial stage itself, the release said. The General Manager of the District Industries Centre has been made the nodal officer to coordinate the inspections with line departments of Boilers, Labour, Factories and Telangana Pollution Control Board, it said.

A day after ten patients were killed at a star hotel converted to a coronavirus treatment centre in Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, Rama Rad had said he had directed officials to get a safety audit done for all factories and manufacturing units in Telangana within a week or face stringent action. Incidentally, on August 20, a major fire broke out in the Srisailam hydroelectric power plant located in Nagarkurnool district of Telangana, killing nine people, most of them engineers, and seriously injuring three.