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Journalism of Courage
The Indian Oil Corporation IOC depot blaze in October,which claimed 11 lives,injured more than a 100 and led to the loss of close to 10 crore litres of fuel,might have been averted had basic safety norms set by the Oil Industry Safety Directorate OISD and IOC itself been followed.
The police investigation,that resulted in the arrest of nine IOC officials including its Rajasthan general manager on Friday,has thrown up startling facts about the blatant violations at the depot. While the arrested officials have been remanded in judicial custody till July 17,senior police officials stated that more arrests might follow,particularly after the completion of the OISD investigation.
Speaking with The Indian Express,Jaipur Additional Superintendent of Police AdSP Yogesh Goyal,who investigated the incidents surrounding the IOC fire,said safety guidelines put in place to avoid or control such an incident were ignored:
The automated system that controlled operation of all 11 storage tanks destroyed in the fire had been dysfunctional for months. If this system had been working,the push of a single button would have closed all storage tanks,preventing leaks.
The last safety audit was conducted at the storage in 2003,preceded by one in 1997. The six-year gaps between the audits went against all safety norms.
No safety audit or scrutiny of the depot was conducted even though the CBI just two months before the fire in August had arrested a depot manager and 11 others for pilfering fuel from this very IOC depot.
Though a GM inspection has to be done every year in accordance with IOC rules,not a single GM inspection report had been filed at the Sitapura IOC depot.
While the guidelines expressly state that the district authorities must pass on information about the smallest leak,IOC personnel took more than an hour to bring the district administration up to speed.
A call was placed to GM Gautam Bose after the leak was detected,but the police stated that he first got in touch with terminal manager Arun Pottdar and then with senior operations manager Shashank Shekar. The trio then drove to a gym to pick up senior terminal manager K S Kanodia and only then headed to the depot.
The depot had neither a public address system to warn surrounding establishments of the leak nor even a basic landline telephone at the main gate to relay information. Strangely,the only emergency gate for IOC personnel had been walled off months ago due to security reasons,IOC personnel told police.
Not a single diagram or set of emergency instructions were in place. The security personnel did not even have a list of numbers to contact in case of an emergency.
Section 154 of OISD states that all depot personnel,whether regular,temporary or contract labourers,must have emergency training. The police found not a single contract or temporary labourer had ever been trained or taken part in a fire drill.
The depot had few or no oxygen masks and firefighting equipment.
