DAYA News Bureau, 2nd December 2022: Accident at the Raw Material Handling Plant (RMHP) of Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP) claimed the life of a permanent employee Ashutosh Ghoshal in the late hours of 1st December 2022.
One might recall that a massive incident of liquid iron spillage on 20th November, from the ladle at the blast furnace of DSP claimed the life of three. Yesterday (1st December) only, one contract employee was seriously injured when a ‘Control Fuse Switch’ (CFS) burst during electrical work at DSP’s closed Blooming and Billet Mill; he was admitted to a private hospital in critical condition.
54 year old Ashutosh was in night shift duty on 1st December. The incident occurred in between 11:30 pm to 12 midnight at the reclaimer B bed of RMHP. The body was torn apart. One leg found in B3 bypass discharge chute and rest of the body found C2 receiving chute.
Ashutosh was operating the reclaimer machine which reclaims iron ore stacked in the ground and pours into conveyor belts to carry it to the blast furnace, where it is used as the main raw material.
Informed sources say, it is customary that if the belt below the reclaimer stops, the reclaimer machine too will stop automatically, but this sequence wasn’t working there for quite some time and hence the reclaimer operator has to stop the reclaimer machine manually as soon as the belt below stops. For this the operator has to keep a close watch on the running condition of the conveyor belt below. It is not always possible to see properly whether the conveyor belt has been running or not and for this one has to peep below, which is indeed a risky proposition.
Ashutosh while inspecting whether the belt below the chute of the reclaimer machine was running might have slipped inside the chute opined his colleagues. And as he fell down through the chute into the running belt, he was carried by the moving belt. After passing through several chute and successive belts his body got torn into pieces.
Incidentally, Ashutosh is known for his working skill and is being respected by his coworkers and higher authorities. In part time he used to give tuition and was socially active as well. Ashutosh is survived by one son and wife.
His death has once again brought to the fore, how vulnerable the workers of DSP are where incidents of accident have become quite normal in recent times.