From The Desk of Executive Director

Executive Director-OISD

Dear Colleagues,

Everyone working in oil and gas industry deals with inherently hazardous process. Industrial accidents are the key indicators of the deficiencies in the safety system of the organization. Analysis of major accident investigated in the recent past brings out the fact that most of the accidents took place due to non-adherence to the procedural steps. In one such case, vessel inertization was not adequately carried out before further opening the flanges, leading to leakage of naphtha, resulting in a major fire. When procedures are by-passed and nothing happens, we tend to adopt the deviation as a New Normal. This phenomenon is called the Normalization of deviance. Several such deviances can result in a gradual erosion of safety standards due to an increased acceptance for deviation. Therefore, care must be exercised to use past success to redefine the acceptable procedure.

Frequent accidents taking place with similar root cause is also a cause of concern. It is an indication that safety is not given due respect by the organisation. In these situations, leaders of the organisation must understand that Safety as a discrete subject is not a concern, but it is an indicator about their poor performance of operational efficiency and poor safety culture. Taking on the ‘worker safety’ on top priority, not only strengthens loyalty and builds relationships between workers and management but also increases productivity.

OISD, as the technical directorate of MoP&NG, is working with industry towards excellence in the field of safety. In last 37 years, OISD through its standards, audits, workshops, seminars, incident investigation, case studies, safety alerts, ‘Suraksha Chetna’ and ‘Suraksha Samwad’ has motivated oil & gas companies and its personnel to intensify their efforts to excel in Health, Safety & Environment.

I am happy to state that in the FY 2021-22, OISD had broken all previous records of External Safety Audit (audited 270 installations and 10106 km of pipeline against previous best of 208 installations and 9002 km of pipeline); PCSA (99 against previous best of 80); Revenue generation (₹674.41 lakhs (unaudited) against the previous best of ₹440.19 lakhs); workshops/ webinars reaching to about 3300 participants. A new initiative of live web session “Suraksha Samwad” was started by OISD covering about 4500 participants in ten such Samwad of approximately 2 hours each, wherein OISD and industry leaders presented case studies followed by Samwad with participants.

Goal of accident-free operation, which every organisation aspires, can only be achieved by building up Safety Culture, wherein everyone working in this industry, including contractual worker, is aware/ made aware of hazards in his/ her operational activities, feels safety is his/ her responsibility, reports any unsafe act or unsafe condition noticed by him/ her and suitable action is taken to close out the unsafe situation. Management shows its commitment by providing necessary resources for complying to the regulatory and OISD standards requirements, ensures competence building of the workforce and ensures effective internal controls through inspection, audit, safety meetings and review.

Looking forward for your valuable comments and suggestions!!

Arun Mittal