The Jalpaiguri district administration will launch a drive on Tuesday to check the safety measures in all the cold storages of the district, following the incident of ammonia leak at a cold storage unit which led to a worker's death on Saturday.

On Monday, senior officials of the administration held a meeting with officials of state departments and wings, including labour, district industrial centre and agricultural marketing, to draw up a plan for the drive.

“A team of officials and experts will visit the cold storage units across the district to check the safety measures in place. They will find out whether the authorities of the storage units concerned are adhering to the stipulated norms and rules. The initiative has been taken to avoid any untoward incident in the future,” said Pushpak Roy, the additional district magistrate (development) of Jalpaiguri.

There are 22 cold storage units in the district.

Sources in the administration said that the inspection team would inspect whether the cold storages have fire licenses and qualified personnel who can handle emergency situations.

Roy said they would also organise safety seminars for owners of cold storage units.

“We will organise a seminar in the outskirts of Jalpaiguri on Tuesday where the owners of cold storage units which are in the surroundings of the district headquarters, would be present. There, we will apprise them about the safety measures. Also, on March 14, another seminar would be organised for those who have cold storage units in Mainaguri and Dhupguri blocks,” the official added.

On Saturday, a maintenance worker lost his life, and two of his colleagues as well as a firefighter had to be hospitalised in the ammonia leak incident at the cold storage.