Daijiworld Media Network - Kaup (SP)

Kaup, Jun 30: There was strong suspicion about a gas leak having occurred at the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Ltd's (ISPRL) underground cavernous facility at Padur near here on Monday June 29. A few children and elderly people suffered from the symptoms of gas leak inhalation.

After they began to smell gas at around 11 am on Monday, the locals alerted Majur gram panchayat, Janajagruti Samiti and several people's representatives. The locals have accused the company of sitting pretty over the reports of gas leak and not doing anything to conduct checks till Monday evening, locals alleged.

Three to four children from Padur Kooralu area vomited while a few senior citizens at home experienced the state of slipping to unconsciousness.

By evening, a delegation formed with the coming together of Majur gram panchayat president Sandeep Rao, vice president Sahana Tantry, zilla panchayat member Shilpa G Suvarna, taluk panchayat member Shashiprabha Shetty and Janajagruti Samiti leaders informed the district administration about the phenomenon. They also tried to find out the source of the odour.

Learning about the delegation's initiatives, Kaup tahsildar Muhammed Isaac, Kaup police circle inspector Mahesh Prasad, environment pollution control officer Vijaya Hegde, and some others visited the spot. They summoned officials of the company and collected information. Vijaya Hegde said that on the face of it, gas leakage could be felt in the area. She said that ISPRL has been asked to find out the source of the smell and address the issue. "We have asked the company to set right the issue within 24 hours. A report on the issue would be filed with the deputy commissioner of the district," said Kaup tahsildar Muhammed Isaac.

Many including people's representatives, taluk administration, police officials and environment pollution board officials took the officials of ISPRL to task for failing to take prompt action in spite of being aware of the seriousness of issues like coronavirus and leakage of poisonous gas at Hyderabad.

ISPRL project manager Vipin Kumar, who visited the spot, denied that there was any leakage. He said that there is no smell of gas anywhere inside the ISPRL unit. He said that there is a 36 km pipeline passing through the district between Padur and Thokur and this pipeline will be checked for leakage by experts team visiting on Tuesday.