NDRF participates in Emergency Preparedness Plan at Propane Storage & Distribution Plant

Central Chronicle News
Bhilai, Sep 02: SAIL-Bhilai Steel Plant, CISF, NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) jointly conducted a Mock-drill Exercise on “Gas Leak Disaster in BSP” at Propane Storage & Distribution Plant on Thursday. The objective of this exercise was to assess the preparedness and response of different agencies during any such emergency.
As part of the exercise, information regarding gas leakage at Propane Storage & Distribution Plant was communicated to the Plant’s Fire Services and CISF simultaneously. Even as the NDRF was informed about the incident, fire tender was rushed from nearby Fire Stations inside Plant to carry out spraying & dousing operation. Personnel of NDRF who were escorted to the spot by CISF, took stock of the situation and swung into action. Soon after the emergency situation was declared, RP Ahirwar as HoD of Propane Storage & Distribution Plant immediately engaged himself and his team to communicate the nature of emergency to different agencies and to control the situation. Subsequently, CGM (Utilities) GA Sorte took on the role of incident controller. Meantime, personnel from several other agencies including the Plant’s Safety Engineering Department, Energy Management Department, Occupational Health Services Department etc that had been simultaneously informed, also rushed to the spot to assist in the entire operation. Senior officers of the Plant including Director I/c, Executive Directors and other departments too reached the spot. Even as the fire tenders were engaged in spraying operations, personnel of NDRF and Fire Services Department brought out the ‘injured persons’ and after administering proper first aid, despatched them in ambulances to hospital. The entire premise was searched for any other injured person even as Gas Safety personnel of Energy Management Department identified and plugged the gas leak. During the entire operation, various aspects of disaster management such as response time of different agencies, coordination between the agencies, movement of personnel and vehicles etc were studied. The objective of the exercise was to ensure that any such disaster is handled in a planned manner so as to execute rescue operations properly and also not to create panic among employees.
Present during the entire exercise were Director I/c, Bhilai Steel Plant, Anirban Dasgupta, senior official from NDRF Arun Dewant, Deputy Director (Industrial Health & Safety) KK Dwivedi, Commandant CISF SK Bajpai, Dr SK Issar, ED (M&HS), AK Bhatta, ED (Projects), SK Dubey, ED (P&A), Anjani Kumar, ED (Works). VK Shrivastava, CGM (EMD), BK Mohapatra, Chief Fire Officer, GP Singh, GM (Safety & Fire Services) played an active role in the entire emergency preparedness exercise. AK Mondal, CGM (Utilities) and other senior officers from the Plant were present.