Mumbai : The city’s fire inspection cell has inspected only 6,000 buildings for compliance of fire-fighting norms since 2012, of which only eight were prosecuted. This shocking information has come to light a day after a skyscraper in Mumbai central, which did not have any functional fire-fighting equipment, caught fire, injuring 14.
On Monday morning, the city saw two incidents where fire had broken out in two different areas. While the one in Goregaon was in an under-construction building and had no casualties, the one in Mumbai central saw 14 injured, of which two had sustained upto 30 per cent burns. Only after the mishap, did the residents admit that none of the fire-fighting equipment in the building, including risers, sprinklers, alarms etc was functional. The fire brigade will now send a notice to the concerned building and if they do not comply, the concerned will be prosecuted.
Every year, the fire brigade does a random examination of buildings in order to check for fire-fighting equipment as well as their maintenance. They also check if the building management had received a notice earlier and has complied with it.
And so, when FPJ tried to find out how many buildings had the city’s fire inspection cell, a part of the fire brigade, scanned in the past three years, it found out that the figure comes down to a mere 6,000. According to deputy chief fire officer Prabhat Rahangdale, 2,000 buildings from the island city as well as suburbs were sent notices, of which eight were prosecuted. Prosecution includes a hefty fine, and in extreme circumstances, the building’s power and water supply can be suspended.
“Only 6,000 residential societies were prosecuted in three years? How can the department be so lax, especially when major fires have broken out in residential buildings in the past few years?” asks Shyama Kulkarni, a civic activist.
In a shocking revelation, the City fire brigade has inspected only 6,000 buildings in past three years
But the fire brigade has defended itself saying that it is not their responsibility to conduct fire inspection and that they do it voluntarily as social service. “It is not mandatory on our part to do these checks. And we only have 80 employees for the job who are primarily fire-fighters. So if a fire breaks out, they have to go on fire-fighting duty. That is their primary responsibility,” informed Sunil Nesrikar, chief fire officer for the city. Rahangdale, too, believes that the 80-odd staffers had done a good job, considering the workload on them.
The brigade will now recruit 99 people by December next year specifically for fire inspection. Besides, they are planning a database that will track how many buildings has the fire inspection cell surveyed.
Tanvi Deshpande
