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Jharsuguda: Acting on the recent incident of fire mishap at the Vedanta Aluminium Limited in Jharsuguda, the Assistant Director of district Factories and Boilers department on Monday directed the Vedanta authorities to shut down operations at its Green Anode Plant till further orders.
This apart, the assistant director has also ordered the authorities to inspect the fire safety measures at the plant.
During investigation, it was revealed that there was a fire incident at the Green Anode Plant of Smelter-2 at around 10.45AM on July 6, wherein one worker Bishikeshan Pradhan got burn injuries on both his palms. Preliminary investigation suggests that HTM (Heat Transfer Medium) oil leaked from a flange of the kneader equipment, which subsequently caused fire.
As such, the operation of the Green Anode Plant is prohibited under Section 40(2) of Factories Act, 1948 till further orders, stated Anil Kumar Nanda, Assistant Director of Factories & Boilers, Jharsuguda Zone in a letter to Vedanta.
"The Vedanta authorities have been ordered to shut operation at the Green Anode unit of plant. They have also been asked to conduct a fire audit of the plant by an independent agency and submit the report to district fire officer," informed Nanda.
A comprehensive fire safety audit shall be conducted for the entire factory by an external independent agency and reports thereof shall be submitted along with a compliance report to the defects observed in the said report, Nanda added.
"A subsequent inspection will also be conducted by the Factories and Boilers department. The loss assessment is underway and further action will be taken after reviewing all the reports," Nanda said.
"We are fully compliant on all the safety requirements as per Factories Act. We will comply with the directives and extend all cooperation to the concerned authorities. Our operations and production remain unimpacted," said Sanjeeb Patnaik, public relation officer, Vedanta Ltd.
