CAG issued fire risk warning 4 years ago

There had been early fire-risk warnings about the 7,000-acre Central Ammunition Depot (CAD) in Maharashtra’s Pulgaon.

In a 2012 audit report on ordnance factories, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said about CAD, Pulgaon: “Shortage of FF (fire-fighting) staff at the CAD had not been made good even after lapse of one and a half decades despite assurance given by the (defence) ministry in their ATN (Action Taken Report) to fill up the vacancies (sic). The critical depot has been kept vulnerable to fire risk.”

“The critical depot has been kept vulnerable to fire risk inspite of surplus FF staff held in other depots within the same command and an expenditure of Rs 5.81 crore had been incurred on their pay and allowances during the period 2004-09,” the national auditor added.

Nor is the CAD a stranger to fire accidents. On May 9, 1989, the country saw one of the biggest fires at India’s largest ammunition dump, causing a loss of more than Rs 140 crore at present value. The cause was a fire that started in uncut grass in an adjacent area. Luckily no lives were lost.

Tuesday night was different. Besides material losses, at last count 16 personnel had lost their lives while at least 17 were injured. Defence sources told this newspaper: “The deaths were due to the secondary explosions when the soldiers from the Defence Security Corps (DSC) and fire-fighters went in to control the fire.”

About 40,000-strong, the DSC comprises retired servicemen from the Army, Navy and Air Force who rejoin to work for a few more years. They are usually tasked with securing and guarding key defence installations.

Other sources that this newspaper spoke to, while not ruling out other angles, pointed to two strong possibilities: one, uncut grass catching fire and spreading; and two, explosives with fuses and containing white phosphorus, which is extremely volatile.

Housing the entire range of small arms ammunition, bombs, landmines, high-calibre ammunition of armoured vehicles, battle tanks, missiles, etc, CAD is the central repository of all ammunition from different procurement agencies, like ordnance factories and trade sources, which is distributed to various depots and field ammunition depots to replenish stocks.