animesharma wrote:@chetak
Pardon my knowledge. But i consider handling of heavy water as one of the most critical aspect of operation. Does your statement means there's no single point of responsibility for inventory of a lab? Can there be any other source for the heavy water.
(In similar practices in mining industry, handling of explosives is high priority.There's always an officer responsible for stocks during his shift, and one for all three shifts)
If you were to see the operations manuals and record keeping ledgers of a company like Shell, Indian Oil or even Union Carbide for that matter, said manuals would put many armed forces to shame.
Complex procedures are already in place in all nuke plants the world over.
They explain in the very minutest of detail what is to be done by whom and when. The written word encapsulates tens of decades of experience and will guarantee safe operations if meticulously followed. Nobody even opens them. Every accident is investigated and systems are sought to be made idiot proof by constant revision of procedures. Problem is that in no time at all a bigger idiot comes along to beat the current idiot proof system.
Such silly manuals exist in all organisations, followed only during "inspections" and for the benefit of inspectors who themselves were guilty of breaking many regulations in their time.
The Bhopal tragedy still took place, a PSU oil storage facility went up in flames and burned for many days. We had Chernobyl and Three mile Island.
Is it your contention that there was a lack of responsible people or written instructions or standard operating procedures or shift in charges or whatever in all the cases mentioned? The disaster took place in spite of stringent checks in place.
You are probably an outsider looking in and very rightly consider handling heavy water a critical operation. What about the poor bored slob who has been drawing heavy water samples for years and years?
Over a period of time contemptuous familiarity sets in and slothful employees resort to dangerous shortcuts because some joker has to pick up his kids from school, another joker has to go to the hospital or buy vegetables or what ever.
Its a sad game that is played the world over. Sometimes with disastrous consequences. All of us are guilty of taking shortcuts. Some clever people could observe carefully and turn an innocent situation to their own nefarious benefit.
If you were to visit the HAL vegetable market in Bangalore during working hours you would be astounded to see the large numbers of uniformed HAL employees stocking up on veggies and haggling over prices. You can bet your boots that in an emergency situation some of the worthies at the market have been named specifically in SOPs to man vital positions or initiate specific actions.
By the way which mining industry are you talking about saar??? Naxalites and other "deprived classes" get their stocks of high explosives only from such "industries" and many a "responsible officer and shift in charge" has retired rich.
