Mumbai : Accusing the BMC administration of shying away from placing responsibility for the Hotel City Kinara fire that claimed eight lives, corporators across party lines demanded the suspension of officials, responsible for inspecting such places for safety measures, for negligence.
They demanded that BMC chief Ajoy Mehta immediately suspend senior civic officials and health officials or licence department officials from L ward for renewing licence of City Kinara hotel without conducting a primary inspection.
A point of order in this regard was issued in the standing committee meeting on Wednesday by Shiv Sena corporator from Kurla, Anuradha Pednekar. “The BMC has lodged a complaint of culpable homicide against owner of the hotel but BMC officials in charge of conducting inspections are equally responsible,” she said.
Pednekar demanded that licences of hotels be cancelled if they are found lacking fire safety apparatus, and all illegal constructions in hotels be demolished.
Congress Corporator Shital Mhatre pointed out that the fire brigade lacks manpower for regular checks, making it easy for buildings to flout fire safety norms.
BJP leader in the BMC, Manoj Kotak, demanded the BMC set up a special department to conduct inspections of all hotels, malls and shopping complexes before providing an NOC. “The fire brigade’s job should only be fire fighting and it must not be burdened with routine inspections. The health department has other equally grave issues to deal with, such as fighting dengue or malaria,” Kotak said. He demanded the current hotel inspections must continue throughout the year.
Rais Shaikh, leader of Samajwadi party, accused the administration of acting in a haphazard manner.
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200 hotels raided in a day
As part of the daily inspection drive, the BMC raided more than 200 hotels in the city on Wednesday. Prominent among them were hotel Fountain Plaza, Oh! Calcutta, Out of the Blue and a CCD outlet in N ward. The BMC inspected six hotels in the M (East) ward, the area corresponding to Govandi and Shivaji Nagar, and found all of them without NOCs or licences.
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