PANAJI
Four days after the disaster, the massive fire at the Becker Coating factory at Pilerne travelled a couple of hills east to smoke the Goa legislative Assembly on Tuesday, even as Chief Minister Pramod Sawant agreed for an extensive review of all hazardous industries across Goa.
Sawant said, the review of all such industrial units across Goa will be done after the 5-member committee headed by North Goa Collector Mamu Hage, IAS, finishes its investigation into the Pilerne incident and submits its report.
The Chief Minister was replying to the lengthy debate on the Pilerne fire that emanated from a calling attention motion tabled by Calangute MLA Michael Lobo.
He said, henceforth such high risk industries will not be permitted near residential locales.
Earlier, Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral furnished analytic reports of water samples from four wells in the vicinity which have shown presence of toxic chemicals above permissible limits but said that the presence of 'E.coli' bacteria had got nothing to do with the fire disaster and indicates contamination of groundwater.
Cabral indicated that through his environment ministry a comprehensive analysis of groundwater will have to be separately carried out at least in high risk areas.
Lobo said the sudden outbreak of massive fire has raised the spectre of pollution in the area and created panic among the locals.
Lobo also said such companies which deal with inflammable products should not be located near the human habitat and demanded relocation of the Berger Becker factory to some other place.
Raising the issue during the Calling Attention in the House, the Calangute MLA said that on the day when the fire incident happened residents of the two wards in Saipem had to be vacated.
Leader of Opposition, Yuri Alemao said the fire incident has exposed the State government as it showed that the government was totally unprepared to deal with such situations.
“It’s a failure of the disaster management. Such industries are ticking time-bombs which need to be evaluated. There should be inspections in all the industrial estates in the State,” Alemao said.
Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardessai said that the company should be made to pay the penalty for the lapses and putting the State in grave risk.
He said the incident was the worst industrial fire in the State and wondered what the government has learnt from the experience.
“Will the government conduct an audit of this incident? Will the government conduct mock drills? Will the State disaster management put all protocols in place to deal with such disasters?” Sardessai questioned.
Aldona MLA, Carlos Alvares Ferreira raised the issue of the need to have preventive action to avoid such accidents. He praised the effort of the Fire and Emergency Services team headed by Nitin Raikar and also mentioned fire officer Bosco Ferrao but lamented that the government has failed to design a proper preventive intervention for disasters.
Benaulim MLA Venzy Viegas raised the issue of the State's disaster management protocol lacking a module to engage the local community and how they should conduct themselves when such disasters take place, including evacuation if needed.
"Even here in the Assembly, if there is a fire or a disaster there is no plan to evacuate from here," Viegas said, and asked the government to introduce a module in the Disaster Management Plan for engagement of the local community.
