Hyderabad, August 24: Expressing anguish over the fire accident at the Srisailam hydroelectric power plant, which killed nine people, a senior TS-GENCO official said that a committee was set up to ascertain the cause of the mishap and recommend preventive measures. Prabhakar Rao, Chairman and Managing Director of Telangana State Power Generation Corporation Ltd (TS-GENCO), said the panel of senior engineers would look into the incident and send its report as to what measures should be taken in the future to avoid such incidents.
He said attempts were being made to restart operations in another 15 days on two units at the factory.
Observing that in view of a lot of heat, personnel were finding it difficult to access the other units, the official said they would start working after assessing the damage.
Rao said he would soon speak to the deceased’s family members and remind them of any possible support.
Compassionate rendezvous would be made, he added.
Expressing deep sorrow at the accident, he said four of the deceased had attempted to come out through the plant’s escape tunnel.
Yet, because of a lack of oxygen and also because they inhaled carbon dioxide, they did not.
For these cases, he said, the ex-gratia of Rs 50 lakh for DE and Rs 25 lakh for each other announced by the chief minister is unparalleled.
Similar incidents have occurred in the country earlier, including one at an NTPC plant in Uttar Pradesh in which 38 people were killed in 2017, and another recently at Neyveli Lignite Corporation.
The power utilities engineers have also been asked to review such accidents, he noted.
On Saturday the Department of Criminal Investigation took over the fire investigation at the Srisailam hydroelectric power plant.
On August 20, the fire broke out at the plant located in Telangana district of Nagarkurnool. Many of those killed had been engineers.
