Deficiencies in safety management system and human error are common causes for chemical accidents besides natural calamities or sabotage, said M. Shashidhar Reddy, Vice Chairman, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). Delivering the inaugural address at the ‘Conference on Safe Processing, Waste Management, Storage & Transportation of Chemicals, Petroleum, Petroleum Products & Natural Gas’ at Jaipur yesterday, Shri Reddy further stated that inflammability of petroleum products and natural gas adds great challenge in handling their processing, storage and transportation. The Conference was jointly organized by NDMA, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of Rajasthan, PNGRB and FICCI.
The National Guidelines for management of Chemical (Industrial) Disasters released in 2007 have called for a proactive, participatory, well structured and fail-safe approach at refining and strengthening the national and local mechanism in the field of prevention of Chemical disasters from the stages of planning to field operation. Reddy observed that while NDMA took a lead in organizing about 400 Mock drills covering various disasters in different parts of the Country and called upon the States to organize more such mock drills in the States on a regular basis, as such exercises will help them to assess their strengths and weaknesses of the response mechanism besides generating public awareness. He also stressed on the importance of Mock Drills covering both onsite and offsite plans for the Chemical Industries.
These chemical disaster drills have come even more to real life after the Japan Tsunami. The things that we never thought would ever happen eventually will.
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