Poor industrial safety standards resulted in accident that killed two, says FIR

RAJKOT: Poor safety standards at the soda ash plant of Saurashtra Chemicals in Porbandar resulted in an industrial accident on Wednesday that killed two and injured three others.
This was alleged by one of the injured workers Bharat Pandavadara (24) in his complaint to the police. Based on Pandavadara’s complaint, police on Thursday booked six persons, including head of the safety department and senior engineers, of the soda ash plant, which is part of Nirma Group, for culpable homicide (not amounting to murder).
On Wednesday, two persons — engineer Hiren Agrawat and factory worker Pratap Odedara — were killed and three others injured when an overhead container filled with raw material, fell on them. This was the second industrial accident in the factory in the last two months.
Following the incident, the work at the factory was suspended under the orders of the Probandar district collector A M Sharma. The accident took place when work was going on on an iron platform on which the container with raw material was kept.
Those booked include factory’s head of safety P Suresh, head of production A K Singh, senior engineer Deepak Yoganandi, senior mechanical engineer Manish Rathod, production engineer Rashid Badi and deceased engineer Hiren Agrawat.
According to the police complaint, Pandavadara, Jayesh Joshi, Agrawat and other workers were on duty when the accident occurred. He stated that they had complained to their safety team that the iron platform on which the huge container was placed was vibrating. But the safety team did not check it and told workers to continue work as everything was normal, the complaint added.
“Within a few minutes, the container along with the iron platform came crashing down killing Agrawat (29) on the spot and injuring other workers,” Pandavadara stated. One of the injured worker Pratap Odedara (30) succumbed to his injuries in hospital. Joshi and Pandavadara are under treatment in a Porbandar hospital.
“Workers had no safety gears despite complaining about poor safety standards at the unit. The accidents occurred due to negligence of the engineers at the unit,” Pandavadara alleged in his complaint.
“We have brought Badi and P Suresh for questioning,” in-charge police inspector H P Dhandhaliya of, Kamlabaug police station, told TOI. The accused have been booked under section 304 (whoever commits culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 287 (negligent conduct with respect to machinery) of the Indian Penal Code, he added.