Army seeks action against those responsible for Pulgaon ammo

The Army has conveyed its anguish to the defence ministry over failure of the Ordnance Factory Board to take punitive action against those found responsible for a deadly blast at an ammunition depot in Maharashtra last year in which 17 jawans and two army officials were killed, government sources said today.
In a communication to the ministry, the Army wondered why the Ordnance Factory Board and Director General of Quality Assurance failed to fix responsibility for the fire at the Central Ammunition Depot in Pulgaon on May 31, 2016, the sources said.
The Pulgaon depot is the largest ammunition and weapons store in the country and is said to be the second largest in Asia.

The Army also mentioned about criminal negligence on the part of certain officials as cited by a high-level probe into the incident and sought immediate action against them.
A court of inquiry had found leakage of explosive materials as reasons behind the blast at the depot.
It had also cited poor quality of TNT (trinitrotoluene) used in anti-tank mines which were stored at the depot, saying it may have triggered exudation of the explosives.

The sources said the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) in Pune in 2012 had clearly called the quality of TNT having the property of exudation (leaking) in anti-tank mines as safety hazard but the OFB stated it to be a world-wide phenomenon.

Two army officials, four defence security corps personnel and 13 defence fire safety staff were killed in the fire.
The CoI had recommended disposal of defective ammunition in a time bound manner to prevent recurrence of fire at the depot, the sources said.
The Ordnance Factory Board operates 41 ordnance factories across the country and functions under the department of defence production of the ministry of defence.