Tuticorin: The Heavy Water Plant, a unit of the Department of Atomic Energy, situated here, received IS- 18001 certification, for fulfilling the requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (OHSMS) prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

At a colourful function held here on Wednesday, S. C. Hiremath, Chairman and Chief Executive, Heavy Water Board, Mumbai, received the IS-18001 certificate from J.T. Davidson, an official of BIS.

In his speech, Mr.Hiremath said it's collective effort of the employees of all ranks which enabled the unit to become the first firm in the South to get IS-18001 certification.

He assured that efforts would be taken to maintain the goals achieved through the certification, with the help of regular management reviews.

Explaining the modus operandi followed to obtain the certification, G. Kalayanakrishnan, Production Manager, Heavy Water Plant, Tuticorin (HWPT), said the process started in 2003, once the Heavy Water Board (HBW) gave green signal to the unit to implement the OHSMS.

"First, critical gaps in the existing systems were identified and core groups were formed to draft SHE (Safety Health and Environmental) policy," he added.

He said special care was taken to merge the studies pertaining to environmental aspects, hazard identification and risk assessment, and evaluated operational control, contingency plan, communication etc., during the documentation of the draft policy.

The unit then formulated sectional objectives and a pre-audit was performed in November 2004.

Mr. Kalyanakrishnan said certification audit (final audit) was however conducted in August this year and the HWP authorities used the period/gap to conduct additional internal audits to strengthen the systems. M.S.N. Sastry, Chief General Manager, and V.C.P. Amarnath, Scientific Officer (Safety), both of HWPT, were present.

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