TUTICORIN, Aug 6: A full month after a mysterious gas leak affected nearly 124 workers of the Ramesh Dry Flowers Factory in Tuticorin, and the Tamil Nadu Government hurriedly ordered the closure of the neighbouring Rs 1,000 crore copper smelter plant of the Sterlite Industries, the blood sample analysis report of the affected workers has surprisingly shown no trace of poisonous substance.

According to high-level sources in the Tuticorin General Hospital, no poisonous substance could be detected in the blood samples. Furthermore, there was no trace of any compound of sulphur. The emission of sulphur-dioxide from the Sterlite plant was suspected by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board to have caused the hospitalisation of workers in the factory nearby, leading to the closure of the Sterlite plant on July 5.

While the State government is yet to take a decision on whether to permit Sterlite to resume its operations or not, and the Tuticorin police probe into the incident has made little headway, the managements of the Ramesh Dry Flowers plant and the Sterlite are blaming each other for the incident, turning it into the industrial whodunit of the year.

According to Tuticorin Town Deputy Superintendent of Police, Shanmuga Rajeswaran, samples of chemicals used in both the copper smelter plant and the Ramesh Dry Flowers plant have been collected and the results of tests are awaited.

The incident and the investigation have raised more questions than have been answered. The most crucial question being the source of the leak and the nature of the gas. Was the emission from the copper smelter plant as claimed by the Ramesh Flowers management? Or, from the Ramesh Flowers factory as counter-alleged by the Sterlite management and ostensibly `confirmed' by its private detective agency?

A team of correspondents from Chennai, who were flown to the Sterlite's plant in Tuticorin, were presented a slide show on what the management claims to be the most environment-friendly technology of the copper smelter plant.

They were shown around the massive 300 acre copper smelter plant consisting of a smelting furnace, a sulphuric acid plant and the yet to be completed phosphoric acid plant.

The Sterlite management is putting forth two arguments in its defence: the so-called emission of sulphur-dioxide from the Sterlite plant should have affected the workers of the Sterlite factory first, before causing nausea and giddiness to the 124 workers working in a particular shed of the Ramesh Flower Factory; and Ramesh Flowers also uses sulphuric acid and other hazardous chemicals for treating the fresh flowers.

Ramesh Flowers managing partner R M Singhwi counters that the emission emerged from the tall chimney of the Sterlite factory and there was no way that it could have affected the Sterlite workers.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.