RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Aug.26: Four officials of Shree Vijaya Company died when the elevator cable broke while they were on their way to inspect 90-meter high chimney associated with FGD of Koderma Thermal Power Station (KTPS) of Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) in Banjhedih in Koderma.
All deceased were officers of Shree Vijaya Company, which was engaged for chimney construction by Thermax Company on back to back basis for its expertise in the work. Thermax Company was allotted work by DVC.
FGD is abbreviation of Flue-gas desulfurization, which is a set of technologies used to remove sulphur dioxide from exhaust flue gases of the fossil fuel power plants and from the emission of sulfur oxide emitting processes such as waste incineration. The chimney is its part.
Those who died included company operator from Maharastra, Krishna Prasad Kodali, engineer from Karnataka, Kartik Sagar, safety officer from Gaya, Naveen Kumar, and managing director of the company Dr Vinod Kumar Choudhary.
“As rope broke around 3.30pm, all fell. The MD died on the spot while the other three died at Sadar Hospital when taken in injured condition,” an insider said, adding this is for the first time such an incident has taken place in which all those died were senior officers of a company. “Earlier about 8 yrs ago, two labourers had died in an accident in the plant,” the insider added.
“The work was undergoing in the wake of Supreme Court direction given to stop pollution from the thermal power unit,” the insider said.
Koderma SP Kumar Gaurav confirmed the incident saying a probe has been started into the matter. “Primary investigation suggests it was due to breaking of rope of the elevator,” he said.