Ministers Chaudhary Birender Singh and Vishnu Deo Sai visited the accident site to assess the situation.
The Ministry of Steel will conduct a high-level enquiry by external experts into the devastating fire accident at Bhilai steel of plant in which 12 employees of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) were killed.
This will be apart from the internal enquiry being carried out by the SAIL management, said a SAIL official. The fire, which began at a gas pipeline in the Coke Oven Battery Complex No 11 during a scheduled regular maintenance, also injured 11 people who are being treated for grievous burns at a local hospital.
Taking stern action, the SAIL management has suspended two senior officials of the plant, while CEO M. Ravi has been divested of his dues following the fire accident this week, said the official.
Union Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh, along with his junior Vishnu Deo Sai and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, visited the Bhilai plant to take stock of the situation. They also went to the plant’s JLN Hospital & Research Centre where he held a meeting with the SAIL chairman and other company officials as well as the doctors and hospital administrators.
A team of doctors from Delhi’s AIIMS also reached Bhilai to assist the local medical team treating the injured employees, some of whom have sustained extensive burn injuries. The AIIMS doctors expressed satisfaction about the facilities in the hospital and the treatment being provided by hospital team.
Later, Birender Singh announced ex-gratia payment of Rs 30 lakh to the family of each of the deceased employees, Rs 15 lakh to the seriously injured employees and Rs 2 lakh to employees with minor injuries. He also assured all possible assistance to families of the deceased persons. The minister said that new techniques of de-blanking would be introduced to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future.
This is the second such accident at the plant in the last four years. In the earlier accident, six persons were killed when the main header of the pump house, which supplies water to the gas cleaning plants of the blast furnaces, suddenly ruptured in June 2014. Interestingly, the plant is considered as one of the best facilities of SAIL.