Report
Subject: 3 Killed 15 injured in LPG Release Date of Email report: Report Detail:
The deceased have been identified as Puran Meena - an IOC employee, Mohammad Saleem - IOC’s tanker driver and Ramdhan - a petrol pump employee. Civil supplies minister Ghanshyam Tiwari has announced an ex gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh for the family of the deceased, Rs 50,000 for seriously injured and Rs 25,000 for those with minor injuries. The district administration will also provide Rs 25,000 for the deceased, Rs 10,000 for seriously injured and Rs 5,000 for those with minor injuries. The government has already released the compensation cheques. District magistrate Praveen Gupta has ordered an inquiry into the incident. The police have not lodged any case in this regard. What exactly caused the fire is still unknown. Separate inquiries into the incident by the district administration, police and IOC have been ordered. The forensic experts were busy gathering evidence from the spot through out the day. Forensic officials suspect that after refueling, starting of the tanker by Saleem and Meena might have led to the explosion. Experts have not ruled out the possibility of a short circuit. There were reports on the basis of eyewitness accounts that some welding work was undergoing within the pump premises due to which leaked gas caught fire, but the authorities refuted these charges. Two women living in the house in front of the Shastri Nagar petrol pump - Mamta Somani and Manju Somani received 17% and 27% burn injuries, respectively, as fire balls hit them when they were trying to jump over to the next building after seeing the flames coming out of the pump. The tanker exploded at that time and huge flames that were thrown out of it, injured them despite the fact that they were almost 350 feet away, said a police official. First, the gas that had leaked caused small flames of fire. After 15 minutes, the tanker blew off. It took almost five hours for more than 30 fire tenders along with IOC’s special fire-fighting arrangements to control the fire. The fire could be doused completely at around 7.30 am on Sunday. According to the police and forensic experts, who visited the spot after the incident, the maximum impact of the blast was within the radius of 350 feet. The rear shell of the tanker had been thrown 250 feet and made a big hole into an underconstruction building near Shashtri Nagar nullah. The police have recorded the statement of the owner of the petrol pump Rajesh Yadav. On the other hand, various citizens groups and NGOs feel that had the JMC and other agencies been careful and active, the disaster could have been averted. Meanwhile, the residents of Subhash Nagar are keen to get the petrol pump removed from the area. On Monday, the JMC began a drive to check the NOCs given to all multi-storied buildings of the city, though the officials claimed that it was a routine operation. Smarting under a public outcry following the fire mishap, the JMC's fire officials went for a check and according to them, found huge discrepancies in following the rules. "The three pumps I visited along Jai Singh highway and Sahkar Marg could not show the NOCs," said Ishwar Lal Jat, chief fire officer of JMC. He said that one petrol pump at Sahkar Marg with LPG, petrol and diesel filling facilities, is apparently at high risk. There are many residential and commercial complexes adjacent to the filling station and the team could not find any fire extinguishing facilities like foam or water tanks in the pump. Neither was the staff trained to handle any eventuality . "We are going to write about the anomalies and non-compliance of rules to the district collector and he would be taking further action since we are not empowered to enforce the rules. The state does not have a fire act as well," added Jat. The JMC team has found similar anomalies even as they issued directions for maintaining fire safety measures in place. "Generally, the complete fire safety equipment costs around Rs 10-15 lakh and the builders do not take interest in investing money. But they somehow manage to get NOCs by giving false undertaking that they have followed the rule book. And we lack monitoring the measures because of certain limitations. However, now to ensure the compliance, we have started taking security deposits at prescribed rates and have collected over Rs 25 crore in a few months. The funds are refundable once the applicants build the safety norms," said Giridhari Sharan, fire commissioner, JMC. Meanwhile, the residents welfare association (RWA) of Subhash Nagar convened a meeting to take stock of the situation and formulate future strategies to avert such incidents. The investigation is in addition to the Indian Oil Corporation's (IOC) own inquiry. Presently three separate enquiries are going on simultaneously in to the fire incident. According to the regional manager, IOC, Gautam Bose, Oil Industry Safety Directorate is in addition to the inquiry ordered by the Indian Oil Corporation."The company had constituted a three-member committee to conduct an internal inquiry into the circumstances leading to the accident ," he added. The district administration has also constituted a probe into the tragedy. District collector Praveen Gupta has ordered a probe by an additional district magistrate. Meanwhile, IOC officials clarified that the deceased Puran Chand Meena was not an employee of the IOC. He was employed by a contractor for the transfer of gas from tanker to pump. Bose said there were 14 LPG pumps operating in the state of which eight were located in Jaipur district alone. The city has five pumps which sells LPG for vehicles. "Initially the company's own employees were deployed for the shifting of gas from the tankers to the pumping stations . But gradually with the number of pumps supplying LPG going up, the company adopted a policy of outsourcing ," he added. Bose said the work was awarded through a transparent system of public tender and the contractor is entrusted with the task based on his expertise in handling of highly inflammable material like LPG, petrol etc. The contractor is solely responsible for the appointment of staff to operate the system as per the contract, he added.
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