Govt earmarks Rs 5 crore for safety of PDD field staff

To arrest accidental deaths and injuries to the field staff of the Power Development Department (PDD), the department Tuesday directed its field offices to immediately focus on relevant safety measures and ensure that there is no loss of human life.

The directions were passed by the Principal Secretary PDD Rohit Kansal while discussing the steps being taken by the department for ensuring safety and security of the field staff while performing duties in the field.

   

As part of this effort, the department has directed both the Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Corporations to ensure that isolators and earthing rods are provided on every 11 KV feeder in J&K.

This would ensure that the field workers would remain safe even if there was accidental touching of live lines or equipment and due to accidental charging of lines or equipment during shutdown activity.

For the first time, PDD has also set aside nearly Rs 5 crore for the procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other safety devices to be used by the field staff working round-the-clock to ensure that uninterrupted power supply was provided to all of its consumers.

The PPE which would be provided to the field workers would include safety helmets to prevent head injuries due to accidental fall or falling objects or impact with other objects, insulating gloves would be provided to prevent electrical shock due to operating rods and operating handles, safety harness belt to be provided for fall protection equipment while working on elevated electrical lines and other equipment and safety shoes would also be provided to prevent foot injury and to provide electrical shock resistance.

In addition, PDD has also issued ‘Standard operating Procedures’ (SoP) for safe working besides designating safety officers.

Set guidelines too have been framed for the field staff to follow while working in the field.

Further, mock safety drill of SoP by the field staff under the proper supervision by safety officers would be made a regular feature in all the field offices of the department.

It was also decided to observe safety day every month to make the field workers aware about the safety issues by conducting mock safety drills and use of PPE and field safety devices.

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