Hyderabad: Explosives stored illegally at construction sites in different parts of the city are a cause for concern as reportedly there is no proper monitoring by authorities concerned. There are also charges that explosives issued to licensed contractors and dealers are being diverted for works undertaken without permissions.
Police said they conducted raids frequently to check the illegal use of explosives which was going on unabated mostly in city outskirts. Such activities claimed the life of a woman in one incident and injured another in a separate incident in the city recently.
Police said despite strict rules to conduct explosions and a permission from the commissioner mandatory, many builders are resorting to illegal blasting. As the legal process involved taking certain permissions from different government agencies and procuring explosives from an authorised dealer is a relatively lengthy process, builders and contractors take the illegal route.
Blast has to be carried under the supervision of an expert certified by the government. But often daily wage workers in the construction sector are carrying out blasts. “They carry out the process as per the requirement of the builder. If it is a legal explosion, there are many limitations on the timings, area, noise and precautions to be taken. But they are void if a construction worker do-es it,” said a senior pol-ice official from the city.
The explosion creates huge noise causing disturbance for people in the surroundings and pollutes the areas. This is because builders do not follow guidelines to dispose the blast debris.
“This also should be addressed and police also can act when there is any information of such illegal activity. A proper mechanism to monitor such illegal activities should be in place,” said an official.
Central authority to issue licence
The Petroleum and Ex-plosives Organisation (PESO), a Central Government agency, has the authority to issue licences for storing and distributing explosives and could act in case any discrepancies was brought to its notice.
As per the explosives Act, a police official of at least an S-I rank should conduct a check at the licensed dealers and submit a report to PESO once in six months. It was found that this was followed by all police units across the state, except in Hyderabad.
PESO is limited to verifying the requirements of the agency applying for licence and issue it. Details after issuing licence is updated to the police unit concerned.
The Explosives Act 2008 states: “Executive Magistrates or police officers authorised shall carry out inspection once in six months in order to ascertain if there has been any violation of the Act or the rules thereof. An assessment regarding adequacy of security guards provided by the licencee at the magazines should also be made during such inspection. A report of such inspection should be submitted to the district magistrate or superintendent of police or commissioner of police concerned with a copy to the licensing authority.”
