703 'Incidents' In Factories In Last Five Years In Telangana

Hyderabad:Pharmaceutical manufacturing units, and factories using chemicals in Telangana may have well-earned a new nickname — tinderboxes set to go off any time. And if data from the Telangana Department of Factories is anything to go by, there have been at least 700 accidents of various types in different kinds of factories with more than 500 — including explosions, fires, and deaths among workers — occurring in pharma units and others using hazardous chemicals.

These accidents occurred in just the past five years.

And the scenario of factories and units using chemicals either for pharmaceutical formulations, drug manufacture, or for other ingredients that require chemicals to manufacture the end product as in the case of manufacturing products such as microcrystalline cellulose at the Sigachi Industries unit in Pashamylaram which saw the worst industrial disaster ever in Telangana or in the then unified Andhra Pradesh, is nothing short of alarming.

Telangana, with its burgeoning pharma and chemical industry base, does not have a consolidated list of companies and factories that fall into the category of Major Accident Hazard (MAH) units. What the state has is a green, orange and red categorization of industries and factories based on their hazard levels they carry and hazard accident potential. Incidentally, several states, including Odisha, and Madhya Pradesh, have placed in the public domain all the MAH units in their states, and Telangana is yet to join the ranks of facing up to such disclosure.

“We will be asking the Department of Factories for a full list of all industries with hazard potential as fire services is a first responder. For instance, at Sigachi, our people had to make inquiries on what chemicals were being used and what gases may be in the air. Though our crews are equipped with hazmat suits and equipment, this was not required in this particular case but full details of industries with their raw materials is required for everyone’s safety. Safety must always be on top of the agenda and everything else can follow,” Nagi Reddy told Deccan Chronicle on Tuesday.

None appears immune from serious accidents, including some well-known pharma giants that have made Hyderabad their home as per the Department of Factories data on accidents. But the apparent shoddy approach of the department is such that even its own database of 703 such incidents does not have all the names of the units that violated various Acts and rules, even when incidents it reportedly investigated included deaths of workers.

Incidentally, the Sigachi disaster came just five days after the June 25 meeting in the city on ‘Pillars of Protection – Forging a Safer Future for Pharma and Chemical Manufacturing’, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries. This meeting was addressed among others by the Director of Factories B. Rajagopala Rao, and Director General of Telangana Fire Disaster Response, Emergency & Civil Defence Department, Y. Nagi Reddy, with the latter calling for mandatory annual fire audits for pharma and life sciences units in the state. “Just pharma units in Telangana reported 102 major fire incidents in the last ten years,” Nagi Reddy said.

Rajagopala Rao in his address, had said safety compliance was a must, and once this is in place, then safety could even become a third priority. The general consensus is that safety is the most important, he said, and explained that once safety becomes a part of the work culture, then priorities such as quality and production, two aspects that keep an industry alive, can take precedence.