Ammonium nitrate giant has no NoC

Safety lapse surfaced after a series of mishaps

THE FACTORY was established in 1991 by the VBC group with an installed capacity of 80 tons per day and it was taken over by the present company in 2001.

Industrial giant, Smartchem Technologies, with a monopoly in the manufacture of ammonium nitrate and other allied products, has not obtained fire NoC ever since they took over the ammonium nitrate factory located in Ponnada village of Etcherlamandal of Srikakulam district.

The factory was established in 1991 by the VBC group with an installed capacity of 80 tons per day and it was taken over by the present company in 2001.

Shortfall in the safety measures surfaced after a series of industrial mishaps in the north coastal region during the last six months.

Srikakulam district collector, J. Niwas, formed a committee on industrial safety after the LG Polymers incident in Visakhapatnam and focussed on hazardous industries.

“We have visited Smartchem factory at Ponnada much before the Beirut blast and found many shortfalls in the safety measures which include failure to obtain an NoC from the fire services department,” said deputy chief inspector of factories, Srikakulam, G.V.V. Satyanrayana. He said the management claimed that since they had obtained permission from the petroleum and explosive safety organisation, there was no need for a separate NoC from fire department. Yet the management insisted on obtaining a certificate from fire services department under services act of 1999.

“We have served notices to the management and asked them to comply with all the safety norms as prescribed by the law. The management sought time till the end of this month to comply with all the specifications,” said Niwas.

Company general manager and head of the unit,Patruni Chandrasekhar Rao, said currently they were producing 30,000 tons of ammonium nitrate and 2,400 tonnes of nitric acid but quickly distributing it to end users. Without mentioning the noncompliance of the fire services certificate, Rao said they have sprinklers and completed 80 per cent of the safetyrelated work as specified by the district administration.

Sources said the company, headquartered in Pune, had a turnover of `10,000 crore in the last financial year. the fire