Following the devastating fire accident at the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD) at Pulgaon, in Maharashtra — possibly triggered by improper storage of defective landmines — Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said a decision has been taken on the disposal of all defective mines held at various locations.
The Army has already started disposing of the old defective mines and efforts were on to fix the remaining defective mines possibly within the next three months, the Minister said.
“The Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) will replace or repair, wherever possible, all the defective mines as early as possible within possibly three months,” he said during a debate during question hour in the Lok Sabha on Friday.
Mr. Parrikar said the most probable cause of the fire at CAD Pulgaon, which claimed 19 lives, as brought by the Court of Inquiry, was excessive exudation, that is, bleeding of TNT, which reacted with the metallic container leading to self-ignition of segregated mines held in the Store House 192.
“Basically, it is a real accident and there is no sabotage,” he observed.
As reported by The Hindu earlier, the Army discovered the explosive, TNT, leaking from the anti-tank mines due to a manufacturing defect and the low grade explosive used in them.
To address the issue in future, a Standard Operating Procedure for disposal of defective ammunition in a fixed timeframe, fixing of responsibility for defects and regularisation of laws is under formulation, which will be issued soon, he stated.
