Govt eases rules for ammonium nitrate, calcium carbide to improve safety

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) on Tuesday said that India has eased ammonium nitrate and calcium carbide rules in order to improve their safety measures in storage and transportation.

This was done in the backdrop of the lessons learnt from the deadly Beirut explosion that killed about 140 people in August 2020. Nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate was stored at Beirut’s port for six years that detonated last year.

There was a need to look at the rules to enhance safety, so that such incidents do not happen in India, Sumita Dawra, additional secretary, DPIIT said.

Currently, the government is examining rules pertaining to five major areas, such as static and mobile pressure vehicles, calcium carbide, ammonium nitrate, gas cylinders, and petroleum and explosives, to ensure such incidents similar to Beirut don’t happen in India.

Steps are also being taken to reduce compliance burden for industry to ensure industrial safety in critical premises such as petroleum installations, explosive manufacturing facilities, cylinder filling and storage premises. Towards this, DPIIT worked with state-owned Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization (PESO), implement policies and standard operating procedures for the manufacturing, storage, transport and use of explosives, petroleum as well as hazardous chemicals, Dawra said.

The capacity for storage of the hazardous chemical in small store houses has been increased by rationalizing the space and quantity requirement. Changes have been made in the rules to allow auction of the seized lots of ammonium nitrate, in a bid to ensure safe and speedy disposal.

To reduce compliance burden, PESO has increased the validity of license for storage of the chemical from three to ten years. Provision for online fees payment facility has been provided in the rules.

“Provisions have now been incorporated in the rules to allow transportation of cryogenic compressed gases such as oxygen, argon, nitrogen, LNG through ISO containers in domestic areas,” Dawra said, adding that the move will help to transport liquid oxygen from surplus areas to deficit areas and reduce the transportation cost as well as time.