New Delhi / Agartala, Dec 5 (TIWN): Energy major Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has been recognized for its safety practices in multiple categories. ONGC secured five awards at the Oil Industry Safety Directory (OISD) Awards ceremony for 2012-13, held at Delhi on December 3rd. The awards were presented by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Petroleum & Natural Gas Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan. A citation was also presented on the occasion by Petroleum Secretary Mr. Saurabh Chandra.

ONGC’s Tripura Asset bagged the award for ‘Best Onshore Asset’ and award received by ONGC Tripura head V.P.Mahawar; ONGC’s Drilling rig DDKG1/Transocean was awarded as the ‘Best Offshore Drilling Rig’. ONGC’s Uran Plant bagged the award for ‘Best Processing plant’. ONGC was also awarded as Best Organisation for its near-miss reporting in the category ‘Exploration & Production Operations’.

OISD also recognized individual contribution towards safety. ONGCian Mr. Mangaldas Nikkaram Bhatti, who is posted as EE (Drilling) at Sagar Ratna was recognized for significant contribution towards safety in individual capacity.

ONGC CMD Mr. D K Sarraf, Director (Finance) Mr. A K Banerjee, Director (T&FS) Mr. Shashi Shanker, Director (Onshore) Mr. Ashok Varma, Director (HR) Mr. D DMisra and OSD Exploration Mr. Anand Sahu were present on the occasion, along with key executives and senior officers of ONGC. Many stalwarts of the oil and gas industry were also there.

While felicitating the award winners, Mr Pradhan said that individuals who have dedicated their lives in the pursuance of safety must be recognized, as they are the safety ambassadors of an organization who in turn motivate others to contribute. He called for bringing in innovation and using state-of-the art technology to ensure that lapses on account of human error are eliminated.

Petroleum Secretary Mr. Saurabh Chandra, while congratulating the award winners said, “Safety is paramount, it is non-negotiable,it cannot be compromised, there should be zero tolerance. Safety has to be encoded into the DNA of every organization”. Speaking on the importance of OISD awards, Mr. Chandra said, ‘Thing that gets rewarded gets done. Please award innovation and efforts of individuals towards safety. The moment you start incentivizing these efforts, they’ll get done”.