Hyderabad: Shocking as the deaths of at least 15 people in a gas pipeline fire in Andhra Pradesh are, what is stupefying is the apathy shown towards maintenance of sensitive systems carrying inflammable gases.
This is the worst accident in the energy sector since August 2013 when 28 people died in a Visakhapatnam refinery fire.
The root cause of such incidents can be traced to carelessness in maintenance of the hardware rather than lack of sophistication in setting up vital energy projects that feed various heavy industries.
One of the imponderables in the aftermath of such a devastating accident is how much more it would have fuelled a fear already existing in villagers about a major Gail pipeline being executed from Kochi to Bengaluru and Mangalore through Tamil Nadu.
Coming at a time when the government is keen to expand infrastructure in several fields to remove blockages holding up progress, the latest tragedy is a warning that cannot be ignored.
While it seems simple enough to import the latest technology, it is maintenance that represents a bigger challenge in a country notoriously lax in putting safety systems and processes in place.
State-owned enterprises dominate the energy sector, which is an even more frightening scenario considering the low standards of maintenance since every budgetary constraint is very likely first passed on to key functions in maintenance.
At a time when infra is going to get a big push, the government would do well to ensure that sufficient funds are built into project budgets under the maintenance head.
