One-third of city's schools fire unsafe

5 hospitals too run without clearances

Almost one-third of the over 5,000 city schools and five hospitals in Delhi are running without fire safety certificates which have been held up due to structural modifications needed in their buildings, an official said on Thursday.

The five hospitals are: Guru Teg Bahadur, Lok Nayak Jai Prakash, G B Pant, Baba Saheb Ambedkar and Kanti Nagar, said Director Fire Services A K Sharma.
In the case of schools, almost 70 per cent of them have a proper fire safety certificate, he said, adding that the rest 30 per cent are yet to get the fire clearance.

Sharma, who accompanied Principal Secretary Home Arvind Ray at a media briefing, said: “The building agencies responsible for constructing the hospitals have been informed about the anomalies and the problems may be rectified soon to pave the way for giving them fire safety clearance.”

The fire service chief said a major technology push was planned for the fire service and a state of the art training institute for skill development of fire prevention will soon be constructed at Budanpur Majara in 72 bigha piece of land.
 
Apart from this, the reconstruction of fire headquarter at Connaught Place has also been sanctioned. “A private consultant has also been appointed for the project,” he said.

He said GPS units are planned to be installed on all fire tenders for computerised control of mobilisation of the fleet. “A tie-up with Maps of India will help improve monitoring of actual movement of tenders from control room,” he said.

Also, the fire clearance application system for buildings is going to be computerised. “The civic agencies will be asked to put on line all building plans – received for approval – so that the fire department can simultaneously review them for fire safety and save time,” he said.

Ray informed that at present 56 fire stations are functional in Delhi and six new fire stations are being constructed.

He said 15 small fire fighting units have been inducted for quick response in congested locality of the city.

Five new hydraulic platforms with 70 metre height have been procured from Finland.