HPCL Contract Workers’ Union honorary president M. Jaggi Naidu and CPI (M) State Secretariat member Ch. Narasinga Rao on Sunday described as “eyewash” the appointment of Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD) Executive Director Hirak Dutta as head of the committee to go into the HPCL Visakha Refinery cooling tower blast and demanded a judicial probe. The accident claimed the lives of eight workers and more than 39 workers were undergoing treatment in various city hospitals, some of them in a critical condition.
At a press meet here on Sunday, they said one could not expect the committee to be unbiased when one Executive Director would investigate into charges levelled against Visakh Refinery officials headed by another Executive Director.
Demanding a commission headed by a sitting or retired Judge of the Supreme Court to expose the circumstances that caused gas leakage and blast leading to the collapse of the cooling tower, they blamed the accident on the use of poor quality material and too much dependence on contract workers.
They recalled that the Jain Commission had gone into the causes that led to vapour cloud explosion in Visakha Refinery causing the death of over 60 persons in 1997. The commission had then recommended that contract workers should not be deployed when the nature of work was permanent.
Narasinga Rao said that six bodies were retrieved from the sump of cooling tower and two died in the hospital and 10 persons were still lying trapped under the debris. The management failed miserably in instilling confidence among the workers, their relatives as well people living near the refinery in Malkapuram and Sriharipuram areas.
He said “the casual and apathetic approach of top officials of the refinery” was clearly exposed. “People responsible can be punished only when the probe is independent,” he remarked.
It is learnt that HPCL CMD S. Roy Chowdhury called on the workers undergoing treatment in various city hospitals and he also visited the blast site in the refinery on Sunday.
sarma.rs@thehindu.co.in