Rajamahendravaram: How safe is to reside in industrial area

Rajamahendravaram: The blast in Tyche Industries, which occurred last week in Kakinada is raising doubts among people to what extent they will be safe residing in the areas surrounded by industries.

Though the district-level industrial safety and monitoring committees are reviewing the security measures in the industry, the result is not encouraging.

The main lapses in the industries are such as lack of effective functioning of fire service equipment, carelessness in the handling of poisonous gases, security measures at the machineries and lack of proper electrification, ineffective pre-cautionary measures at chemical godowns among others. In the beginning of the year, ammonia gas leaked in ice factory at Ramanayyapeta in Kakinada, two fire incidents in plastic industries and recently explosion in Kakinada along with other incidents across the district.

The district has fertiliser, paper mills, gas-based power plant, boiled rice mills, aqua processing units, pharmaceuticals and agro-based units. As many as 63 factories are using ammonia gas.

The district also has 179 dangerous factories including 21 extremely dangerous industries and 158 dangerous industries and 8,167 micro, middle and small scale industries, eight heavy major industries and 57 major industries.