OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS IN DEVELOPING A STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE (SOP)

I have been, and continue to be a staunch proponent of the THREE IMPERATIVES for successful operation of a Wastewater Treatment Plant. Regular followers of this Adda will by now no doubt know the importance of :

• The Zeroth Law – Selection of correct, Suitable and Appropriate Technology

Followed by

·        Proper Design of a Treatment Plant

·        Proper Engineering of the Treatment Plant

·        Proper Operation and Maintenance of the Treatment Plant

In this last aspect, I put developing and maintaining a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) right on top of the priority list.

Alas, I have been guilty of authoring one such SOP which failed ingloriously, to my everlasting shame. The story runs thus :

It was about twenty years ago that I was called upon by an upcoming Industrial Group which went by the name and style of Woolworth India, aspiring to be Numero Uno in the silk yarn, fabric and textiles business, to design a treatment plant for wastewaters from their silk degumming unit.

To Begin at the beginning, Woolworth first set up a waste silk degumming facility at Malda, West Bengal, converting it to silk yarn. Malda in those days was a sleepy little village, masquerading as a town, situated on the geographical border of India with Bangladesh. Malda has been a leading centre of the silk trade since the days of the Mughals : In later years Malda shot into prominence courtesy the bountiful munificence of the Indian Railways under its large hearted but profligate Minister, the ever colourful A B A Ghani Khan Choudhuri. The other major industry in Malda was smuggling of goods and humans across the border with Bangladesh. Woolworth then shipped the silk yarn to Raipur, (then in Madhya Pradesh) now capital of Chattisgarh,  where they set up a yarn dyeing unit, and the dyed yarn was shipped out to their finishing unit in neighbouring Nagpur in Maharashtra, where the yarn was woven and printed to make the final silk fabric. This was Woolworth’s very own version of the Silk Route.

The treatment of the wastewater from silk degumming called for a first stage of chemical treatment where Sodium Sulfite had to be reduced and precipitated as the Sulfide, followed by a conventional two stage biological treatment process. The initial trials showed that the design of the treatment plant (one of the first of its kind in India) was successful. It was time to start and commission the plant for full scale operations.

I made the long journey to Malda in the middle of the winter season : Catching the flight from Bangalore to Calcutta (the only one operated by Indian Airlines in those days), marking time at the Guest House till it was time to catch the late night Gour Express from Sealdah to Malda – again a gift to Malda by the above mentioned Railway Minister.

A few stops out of Sealdah is Burdwan. I was on the lookout for the seller of “Bread butter – Bread butter”, not because I craved Bread butter for dinner : on my last trip the rascal had sold me a dummy – Butter oozing out of the periphery between the two slices of bread, bone dry inside ! !

I was roused to wakefulness early the next morning by the slow Clickety Clack, Clickety clack of the train gingerly picking its way across the never ending Farakka Barrage, and after what seemed to be an eternity chugged into Malda Town.

I got down to business in earnest that very morning, calling in all the newly recruited treatment plant operators from the local populace for the mandatory training session. Employing my impeccable Bombay/ Madrasi Hindi (I am a man of both parts) over the course of the day, I believe I succeeded in explaining to them the requisite operations to be carried out in the treatment plant. At around 6 PM, I called it a day, and told my acolytes that I would be back again the next morning at 0900 hrs sharp for a repeat refresher session of training.

The gang was already in attendance as I approached the treatment plant the next morning, casting puzzled glances hither and thither, remarking with the greatest of surprise that all the pumps, motors, aerators (We had floating aerators in those days before the advent of now ubiquitous membrane diffusers)  were switched off : no sibilant whirring of motors, no splashing and spraying of aerators did I hear, save bird calls emanating from the multitude of mango trees nearby. Besides Silk, Malda is famous for its mangoes.

Directly after my departure from the scene the previous evening, the boys had dutifully and diligently switched off all motors, pumps etc., and indeed even the main incomer to the electrical panel board as a measure of abundant caution, and wended their way to respective homes, happy in the knowledge of a day spent well, their minds brimming with new learnings from an “expert”.

“ Lekin Saab, aapne yeh nahin bathaya ki yeh plant 24 hour chalu rakhna hai “ !!! 

( But Sir,  you did not instruct us that the Plant had to be kept operational round the clock , 24 hours of the day)

From that very day, I take nothing, absolutely nothing for granted, assume nothing, when it comes to training people in treatment plant operations, or indeed writing an SOP.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                       April 18, 2011