Why NTPC blast in UP failed to explode into a national debate
It's rather unfortunate that even 70 years after India got Independence, life in the country continues to be dirt cheap. The fact was demonstrated by a major industrial accident at Unchahar in Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh, where the National Thermal Power Corporation's (NTPC) newly commissioned 500MW power generating unit witnessed an explosion on Wednesday.
An international hue and cry was triggered over Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011, in which there was not a single immediate death, either due to nuclear radiations or any related cause. But according to UP chief secretary Rajiv Kumar, at least 20 people died and over 150 were injured in the NTPC plant explosion.
And yet the disaster failed to trigger a national debate on the larger causes of such major industrial accidents, how to prevent such mishaps and the need to have a standard operating procedure in place, first to prevent accidents and then having healthcare facilities located close to major industrial units to minimise loss of human lives.
The Unchahar disaster, involving NTPC, should force the largest power utility in India (which has a total installed capacity of 51,708MW, including 7,216MW through joint ventures/subsidiaries, comprising 48 power stations) to come up with an action plan on at least two key aspects.
One, how to prevent such mishaps in the future; and two, how to minimise human casualties if such accidents do happen. The NTPC needs to put its act together in double quick time for the sake of its own reputation as accidents at its power plants are rare indeed. Such incidents have a commercial fallout also as is evident by the fact that NTPC shares on Thursday lost over 2 per cent in intraday trading at the stock market.
Incidentally, NTPC's Unchahar plant had recently set a national record with 686 days of continuous generation by 210MW Unit-I surpassing APL Mundra.
The central and state governments need to ensure that such man-made disasters borne out of sheer negligence are not repeated and human casualties must be minimised even if industrial accidents happen. While a magisterial probe has been ordered and we will get to know after a week about the exact causes of the accident at the unit, it is up to the central and state governments to come up with effective institutionalised mechanisms. Here are a few suggestions:
1) All industrial plants must have a captive 100-bed hospital for treatment of the kind of injuries this plant may inflict on workers in case of an accident.
2) This specialised hospital must be equipped with state-of-the-art equipment with a 24-hour back-up of doctors, paramedic staff, life-saving drugs, oxygen cylinders and 24×7 power supply (unlike the UP hospital where a large number of deaths took place earlier this year because of dearth of oxygen and power supply).
3) The cost of this super-speciality 100-bed hospital must be factored in while an industrial unit is being planned.
4) The local population should be given access to this health facility while keeping an adequate number of beds reserved to deal with any mishap at the nearby plant.
5) If such a mini super-specialty hospital is available to the workers of the industrial unit and the local population, it will fix two issues immediately. First, it will minimise loss of human lives (as most deaths occur because of lack of a proper health facility close by). Second, it will dot the country with a string of mini-AIIMS over a period of time, bringing top-class health benefits to a large part of the population and reducing pressure on big hospitals in mega cities. It will truly trigger a new wave of integrated development: "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas".
But is it happening? Hardly. The NTPC plant accident is just a one-off incident which doesn't trigger a meaningful debate among the society and the ruling elite. Our media, particularly the TV channels, have neither the airtime nor the intention to focus on larger, deeper, meatier issues because such industrial accidents do not increase their TRPs, the way the Honeypreets and the Radhe Mas do.
As for our politicians, their words and actions are high optics meant to nourish only their vote-banks and little else. For example, opposition leader and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi made it a point to interrupt his ongoing visit to the poll-bound Gujarat and rush to Unchahar on November 2, and meet the victims and next of kin. He scored a brownie point as he became the first national leader to do so. Incidentally, Unchahar is part of Rae Bareli, the parliamentary constituency of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
But there are many politicians who don't fight shy of using these tragedies for throwing barbs at their political rivals. Take for example the remark of Rajya Sabha MP and suspended Janata Dal (United) leader Ali Anwar. In an obvious dig at the BJP government, Anwar said, "They have saffronised everything in the state. Had the NTPC power plant been saffron in colour, the mishap would not have happened at all."
Remarks such as these only show that unfortunately our country is full of politicians with hardly a statesman around. As they say a politician only thinks of the next election whereas a statesman thinks of the next generation.
Is it too much to expect our politicians to act like statesmen?