Penalise those responsible for industrial accidents, says ex-bureaucrat in a letter to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin

Former bureaucrat urges TN govt to take Ennore incidents as wake up call & put in place safety protocols.

Former bureaucrat E.A.S. Sarma urged the Tamil Nadu government to take the recent incidents of oil spill and ammonia gas leak in Ennore as a wake up call and put in place long-term environmental and safety protocols.

In a letter to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Monday, Mr. Sarma, a former secretary to the Government of India, said in different States, industrial clusters, such as those at Ennore and Manali in Tamil Nadu, had come up as a result of deliberate policy measures taken by the States to promote industrialisation.

“While those promoting industrial units benefit enormously from concessions extended by the States and the Centre in terms of tax sops, cheap land allocation, subsidised electricity and water supply, and several other incentives, rarely do they consider it their obligation to remain accountable to the people residing in the vicinity of their units nor do the authorities concerned, who exist at the cost of the taxpayer, feel it necessary to play their role as regulators of industrial safety and pollution,” he wrote.

Stressing that industrial accidents, such as the latest one at Ennore, would not have occurred if the unit had fully complied with the prescribed safety protocols, Mr. Sarma called for those responsible for criminal negligence that had resulted in these accidents to be subjected to prosecution under the Indian Penal Code.

He suggested that the extent of the health damage needed to be determined on scientific lines, quantified in monetary terms, and recovered from those responsible. “Those responsible for the loss of livelihoods of fishermen, damage to people’s health and damage to the environment should be forced to bear the total cost as assessed above and also pay a deterrent penalty,” he said.