Firemen’s union asks for 8-hour workday

Firemen’s union asks for 8-hour workday

FPJ BureauUpdated: Saturday, June 01, 2019, 01:36 AM IST
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Mumbai fire sevices union leaders Mahabal Shetty and Ramakant Bane addressing the media at Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh in Mumbai on Wednesday. — BL SONI |

Also asks BMC to prepare a Standard Operation System for fire fighting

Mumbai : After the Kalbadevi fire incident, officers from the Mumbai fire brigade have demanded that their duty hours, too, should be reduced to eight hours like that of ordinary firemen. They have also asked the BMC administration to prepare a Standard Operation System (SOP) for fire fighting.

On Wednesday, the representatives of the Mumbai fire services union met civic commissioner Ajoy Mehta and presented their charter of demands. The general secretary of the union alleged that the fire brigade doesn’t have modern equipment to combat cases of fire. “The firemen should be equipped adequately so that they are safe while saving lives,” he said.

While talking about duty hours, he said that the officers are on duty 24 hours a day. “But often, the officers are not at the fire station. They are busy with their administrative work in the BMC head office or somewhere in the field. It takes time to get ready to attend to a call. If their duty timings would be for eight hours, then they have to be in the fire station when they are on duty and they can guide the team and can also reach the spot in a short period of time,” he said.

“In Mumbai fire brigade, there are 626 posts that are vacant and the BMC is not recruiting personnel for the same. There are many vacant posts in the workshop, so the maintenance of the fire fighting vehicles is not done regularly,” Bane alleged.

Meanwhile, talking about the inquiry report of the Kalbadevi fire incident, he said that not a single report has been completed and published yet. “Whenever a fireman dies in a rescue operation, the civic administration announces an inquiry, but not a single report has been tabled in the BMC,” he alleged.

“It shows the callous attitude of the BMC administration towards firemen,” he said.

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