Existing Situation of HRA in Complex Systems Sectors and Its Future Scope in India

Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) is an analytical technique to evaluate the risk emanating from complex facilities such as Nuclear Power Plants (NPP), chemical plants, amongst others. Human operators play a vital role in safe operation of NPPs. Nonetheless, sometimes, due to complex interplay with technology and organizational practices, human operators may fail to meet the expected performance, which could drift the system towards unsafe situation. Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) is a branch of PSA that accounts for the impact of actions, or the lack thereof, of the human operator in evaluation of overall risk from the facility. The final outcome of HRA is the metric of Human Error Probability (HEP). Thus, HRA plays a crucial role in risk assessment of complex safety–critical sectors, such as nuclear. In India, an NPP licensee has to perform Level 1 PSA (inclusive of HRA) as a part of regulatory compliance and ensure that the Core Damage Frequency (CDF) meets the safety criteria. Most of these HRA methods, especially in the nuclear sector in India are predominately of the first-generation variety. Globally, many researchers and practitioners have shifted towards second-generation methods and are now advancing towards third-generation methods. Thus, this paper discusses challenges faced by the PSA experts and the current state of HRA in India. Based on the discussion, it presents a possible roadmap to overcome the same, in order to further enhance PSA studies in complex safety–critical sectors in India.