If YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has his way, the existing plant of L G Polymers at R R Venkatapuram in Visakhapatnam is most likely to be moved out to a distant location.
An expert committee headed by senior IAS officer Neerabh Kumar Prasad, special chief secretary (environment) submitted a report to the chief minister in the afternoon on the accident that happened in LG Polymers plant where there was a leakage of Styrene gas on May 7 resulting in the death of 12 persons.
Jagan asked the authorities to prepare an action plan, categorising industries into green and white and should be relocated far from residential colonies so that people should not suffer.
“All the departments concerned should work out protocols in this regard,” he said.
The committee blamed it on the LG Polymers management for the styrene gas leakage on May 7.
“There was slackness on part of the company with regard to safety measures. There was no proper preventive mechanism to avert such incidents,” it said.
The report concluded that the accident occurred due to uncontrolled Styrene vapour release from the N6 tank.
“The temperature in the tank rose substantially, which resulted in vapourisation of Styrene liquid and increase in the pressure in the tank,” it said.
Poor design of the Styrene tank, inadequate refrigeration and faulty cooling system, absence of circulation and mixing systems, poor safety protocol and management systems, inadequate risk assessment response, insufficient knowledge among staff about chemical properties of styrene, especially during storage conditions, total breakdown of the emergency response of the procedures and non-following of safety protocol by the authorities during the lockdown period were responsible for the accident, the report said.
The committee also observed that the factory has absolutely no stocks of inhibitors and negligible stocks of terminators which could've been used to minimise the impact of the accident if not neutralise it.
