MADURAI: After evacuation of 2,124 metric tonne of sulphuric acid from the sealed Sterlite plant in Tuticorin, districts authorities have begun efforts to evacuate other acids, gases, chemicals and materials from the copper plant.
Tuticorin district collector Sandeep Nanduri told reporters on Monday that the evacuation would take place as recommended by a high-power committee of the Tamil Nadu government that had inspected the plant recently.
“The committee submitted its observations and recommendations to the state government, following which we have received instructions from the government to form a district level committee under the leadership of the collector to work out evacuation of the remaining acids, chemicals and gases from the plant. We have been instructed to complete it within 30 days (by July 31),” he said.
According to the collector, apart from sulphuric acid, other major components in the plant to be evacuated are phosphoric acid, copper concentrate, liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen, diesel and gypsum. However, but the stock could not be quantified.
He said the quantity of gypsum was enormous and that it would take more than a month to evacuate it. “Evacuation of all the components would be carried out simultaneously,” he said.
Nanduri said the district level committee comprising a sub-collector, Tuticorin corporation commissioner and officials from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation, fire and rescue services department, industrial safety and police visited the plant on Saturday and studied the requirements to evacuate the said components.
Prasanta Patnaik 
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