PROBE THE ACCIDENT IN THE SRISAILAM HYDEL POWER STATION
IMPROVE MAINTAINANCE OF POWER PLANTS

The National Committee of IFTU condoles the death of seven employees of Telangana State Genco and two employees of a battery company who died in the accident in the Srisailam Hydel-power station and expresses its sympathies to the families of the deceased.

The sixteen year old power station located on the left bank of the Krishna river near Srisailam reservoir was an inferno emanating toxic smoke that snuffed out the lives of nine employees among whom are engineers and plant attendants. It is said that short circuit in one of the transformers caused the fire that enveloped plants of this underground power station. But this needs to be thoroughly probed in order that lessons are drawn from the incident to avert such horrible accidents in future.There have been accidents in the country which were due to poor maintainance of plants and in the instant case this aspect also needs to examined.

Most industrial accidents happen due to negligence resulting in loss of lives. There are umpteen examples of such accidents in factories and establishments in the country that have snuffed out lives of workers and employees. In the last six years fire accidents occurred in four hydel projects and the one that happened in the  thermal power station of NTPC in Rai Bareilly in UP in 2017 taking away the lives of some 25 workers was a major one.

The Telangana State government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 50 lakhs to the DE and 25 lakhs to the rest and a job to a member of the families of the deceased. While the latter is  a formal,normal declaration, there cannot be any discrimination in terms of the compensation announced. All seven employees of Genco died in the same accident and their families should get the same financial compensation.The National Committee of IFTU demands that  a High –Level  Probe consisting of engineering experts and experts on safety  should be initiated and concrete measures to improve the maintainance of the plants should be taken. A compensation of Rs.One Crore should be given to the families of the deceased.

Aparna                                                                                                           Pradeep

President                                                                                                       General Secretary