The Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) has taken a serious note of excess production by pharmaceutical companies without prior permission or intimation to the PCB, because of which incidents like blast and fire accidents are taking place in the Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City (JNPC) at Parawada in Visakhapatnam.

The APPCB officials took note of a recent blast and fire accident at a bulk drug manufacturing unit of Alivira Animal Health Limited (formerly Shasun Pharmaceuticals Ltd) on January 25 and have initiated inspections of the firm for ascertaining the reasons behind the cause of the blast and fire accident at its laboratory.

Earlier the PCB had issued Consent for Operation (CFO) to the industry valid up to March 2016 and stipulated that the firm shall take precautions to control discharge of effluents, emissions and odour into the surroundings. However, the company was found at default for not adhering to any of the above mentioned precautions and was deliberately releasing dangerous and pungent smelling gases into open air.

In view of this, the investigators and inspectors from APPCB carried out replica tests of processes to analyze the production process and quality and quantity of products and effluents from the manufacturing process adopted by the company.

“We have carried out tests of product process at all the 8 testing facilities of the firm for different reactions in the labs. We have observed that all the 8 facilities are having fuming hoods on their tops connected to a common scrubber and after scrubbing the gases are vented out into atmosphere. However during our inspections we observed pungent smell in and around the factory premises due to burning of raw materials, solvents and nitro rubber insulation of the ducting. We monitored the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) through VOC meter, all our tests have found that the VOCs are up to 2 ppm against the standard of zero,” explained a PCB inspector.

Keeping all these observations into account, the APPCB had directed further investigation into the incident and asked the officials to find out the real cause of the blast and fire accident. “Usually blast may be caused by excess production without installing the extra production infrastructure and try to use the same facility repeatedly with excess loads, this will lead to blast, as the existing cylinders or tanks may not withstand the pressure,” informed another inspector.

“Based on observations by our inspectors we are suspecting excess production and violations of the pollution control norms by the firm. Keeping in view the public health and environment we have issued stop production orders to firm under Sec.31 (A) of Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1987 and under Sec 33(A) of Water (Prevention and Pollution Control) Act, 1988,” informed Dr. Phani Kumar, chairman of APPCB.