SURAT, Jan 17: District Collector R M Shah has directed 25 hazardous industries in and around the city to implement off-site emergency plans and get them cleared by the district administration. The directive has been issued to ensure minimum damage to life and property in case of an actual crisis.The directive was issued at a District Crisis Group meeting held at the collectorate under the government's disaster management plan.Addressing the meeting, Shah said the committee, comprising 11 government officials and industry experts along with officials of other departments concerned, had identified 25 industries - including those at Hazira - and had directed them to carry out off site emergency plans.The units in question have also been asked to furnish all information regarding production, safety measures adopted and other related information to the collectorate to facilitate emergency action by the district administration.Shah said that while all these companies had on-site emergency plans (that is, plans for a crisis at the industry itself) ready, precious little had been done so far as off-site emergency plans were concerned.The off-site emergency plans cover areas that could be affected by leaking gas and consider the effects, evacuation arrangements, vehicles, hospitals, medicinal stocks that may be needed and other primary aid and rescue equipment.Shah said that the 25 hazardous units had also been asked to inform people likely to be affected by emergency of the steps of the off-site emergency plan.Addressing a related problem, the collector directed officials of the GPCB, Choryasi taluka prant officer Mukesh Gadhvi, and the police officials concerned to investigate complaints that chemical industries on the Sachin-Magdalla Road were collecting and selling off industrial waste and issue notices to erring industries.Providing statistics, District Industries Centre general manager C B Dasadia said that after the Bhopal tragedy of 1984, the Centre had conducted a survey, in which 750 industrial units - 240 of them in Gujarat alone - were identified as hazardous. In 1987, he said, it had been made mandatory for all hazardous units to formulate off-site emergency plans; district-level committees had been asked to monitor their progress from 1996. A year later, in 1997, disaster management plans were made mandatory in all districts, he stated.A release issued by the collectorate said that representatives of Reliance, Essar, ONGC, Baroda Rayon, Gujarat Gas and other units were present for the meeting.
