Giaspura Tragedy: Polluting industries get ‘clean chit’, NGT committee ‘fails’ to nail culprits

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, October 13

In what appears to be a “clean chit” to the polluting industries, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) appointed panel to probe the Giaspura gas leak tragedy has not found any polluting industry responsible for the incident.

The eight-member fact finding joint committee, headed by Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) Chairman Adarsh Pal Vig, has taken over five months to investigate the incident but no culprit has been nailed in its report.

The mandate

The NGT had given the mandate to ascertain the cause of the incident and remedial action taken and required, including measures to prevent such incidents in future and to compensate the victims by way of adequate compensation.

The 397-page voluminous report, a copy of which is with The Tribune, was submitted to the NGT on Wednesday.

The sudden release of high concentration of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) gas from a roadside manhole in Giaspura here on April 30, had claimed 11 lives, including five of a family, and had left four injured.

Taking a suo motu notice of the incident, the NGT principal Bench, headed by the then Chairperson Adarsh Kumar Goel and comprising then judicial member Sudhir Agarwal and executive member Dr A Senthil Vel, had on May 2 ordered to constitute the panel to inquire and submit its report to the Tribunal on or before June 30.

However, the committee kept seeking time and finally submitted the report on Wednesday.

In its findings on reasons and causes of the incident, the panel reported that it had examined the area around the tragedy site and had considered various factors such as presence of a dense population, congested locality, various commercial establishments, industries, vehras and meat shops, which could contribute to organic or inorganic loading in the sewer around the tragedy site, besides the conditions of houses/establishments in which the incident occurred.

The committee also examined the design, maintenance and ventilation of the sewer system and the condition of the affected houses/ buildings.

Summarising the reasons and causes of the incident, the report said the sudden discharge of any chemical by any tanker or other means has been ruled out by the police at the tragedy site up to 1 km of the incident site.

“As per joint survey by the MC and the PPCB, no acid consuming industry is located within 100-m radius of the tragedy site. No illegal discharge was observed from any unit up to 500-m upstream and 200-m downstream of the tragedy point,” it reported.

Noting that the incident occurred in a short stretch area of about three houses with no one at the upstream, downstream or any other point getting affected, the panel observed that the pocket in the affected stretch was not behaving in unison with the rest of the sewer line of the area. “High accumulation of various parameters was observed in the pocket, indicating some abnormality in the flow of sewer or obstruction in that particular stretch only,” it mentioned.

The report noted that the incident occurred on Sunday and no industry in the vicinity was in operation. “As such, high concentrations of other parameters in front of the tragedy site is due to some localised reason, which may be accumulation/sedimentation/sludge depositions/ blockage,” it said.

The committee reported that the buildings/ houses where the incident occurred were highly congested and cross-ventilation was negligible. “None of the buildings have approved building plans as reflected from the report of the district administration. Neither proper ventilation nor proper p-traps/ water seal closets were provided by these affected households,” it observed.

The probe found that there were no ventilation shafts in place along the sewer line for dissipation of sewer gases. “As such, there are ideal conditions for accumulation of sewer gases at the point due to no provisions for escape of these gases. So, the sewer gases generated, may be due to unknown blockage of sewer pipeline passing along the road accumulated particularly at the stretch,” the report submitted.

It said the incident occurred most probably as the H2S sewer gas tried to escape from washrooms/ toilets or openings of nearby houses, attacking persons staying on the ground floor or persons coming to ground floor to help other relatives. “Supportive evidence is that a pet dog, which was tied with a chain on the roof, was found alive by the NDRF team and it was handed over to the civil authorities. Also, two children were rescued alive. They all were hiding out of fear in that room on the first floor and did not come to the ground floor, following which they escaped sewer gas inhalation,” the panel reported.

It said gas detectors also detected high levels of H2S (190 to 200 ppm) around 1:30 pm and after flushing the sewer line with caustic soda, the levels were dropped to 2-15 ppm around 10 pm.

Endorsing the fact that had the sewer line was in a running condition with free flow, the accumulation of H2S was not possible as in natural sewer conditions with free-flowing water, there should not have been any aberration, the panel members reported that the accumulation of H2S could only result if there was a permanent or temporary blockage or structural in-congruency leading to stagnation, slow velocities of sewer stream along with sludge, slime deposition at the bottom, facilitating anaerobic conditions in the sewer.

Noting that sludge was indeed found deposited at the bottom of the sewer line due to sedimentation of the matter, the probe found that the last major sewer cleaning was carried out in 2019 due to which the conditions were completely and highly favourable for prolonged sludge deposition at this point.

The report hinted at strong possibility of blocked sewer line in that particular stretch, which resulted in accumulation of sewer gases in the headspace and the gases tried to escape from personal openings of the affected houses due to reverse/ back venting in the absence of the provisions of the vent shafts along the main sewer line.

“Reports received from all departments evidently show that the conditions were quite favourable for generation of H2S through anaerobic conditions and bio-chemical degradation of organic matter in that particular stretch of the sewer line,” the committee concluded.

The panel

The fact-finding joint committee constituted by the NGT was led by the PPCB Chairman and comprised Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) Regional Director (North), nominees of Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (ITRC), Lucknow, Chandigarh PGI Director, NDRF, PPCB, District Magistrate and MC Commissioner.

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