Scientists for People stress need for process safety standards in industrial units A.P.

Scientists for People, an informal group of retired scientists and academicians based in Hyderabad, underlined the need for ‘process safety management standards’ in industrial units in Andhra Pradesh to prevent accidents, and alleged that most hazardous industrial units in the State do not have safety officers.

In a letter to N. Yuvaraj, Principal Secretary (Industries and Commerce) to the State government, K. Babu Rao, K. Venkat Reddy and Ahmed Khan, retired senior scientists at Indian Institute of Chemical Technology-Hyderabad, pointed out that since all the fatal accidents occurred in pharmaceutical sector, expertise in chemical process safety was a requirement.

They observed that the U.S. has two crucial regulatory frameworks — Risk Management Program (RMP) of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Process Safety Management (PSM) standards of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Though the A.P. Pollution Control Board and the Directorate of Factories were equivalent to EPA and OSHA, they do not have such programmes.

Mr. Babu Rao and the others said the recent accidents at Escientia Advanced Sciences Private Limited and Synergene Active Ingredients only entailed physical processes and were not due to chemical reaction hazards. These incidents were not fully representative of the accidents that occurred in the State over the past four years.

Therefore, any measures based on those two accidents would be inadequate to improve safety at all workplaces, and frequent inspections and audits were not a solution. 

Further, the scientists said the State government has not revised the requirement of one safety officer for every 1,000 employees for a long time, and there was no safety education in any of the universities in the State.