‘Beyond Carlton’ group hopes to make India fire safe

The group was formed in the aftermath of the Carlton Towers fire in 2010. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the tragedy

Beyond Carlton was born out of the ‘avoidable’ Carlton Towers fire tragedy that took place in Bengaluru on February 23, 2010. Grieving relatives and survivors came together with an aim to make India 100 per cent fire safe.

The movement, spearheaded by Uday Vijayan, initiates awareness and recognises fire safety champions in order to achieve its goal.

One of their largest initiatives is the city-specific fire safety map that has been created in collaboration with the fire department. The project, launched in 2018, took over a year to create. It outlines short-term and long-term goals towards fire safety in the city.

“The challenge is implementation. We can only be catalysts,” says Uday. But they also don’t create a plan and leave it in the hands of the authorities, they do periodic reviews of the progress.

“We are a constant pressure point as we have a very focused objective,” he says.

Uday, who lost his only son in the tragedy, says that he is both happy and unhappy with the developments in the field of fire safety.

“Post the accident in 2010, we had filed a PIL regarding safety measures, which had an impact on the laws in the state. This was a great achievement,” he says. It led to buildings over 15 metres having to get a clearance certificate from the fire department every two years.

“We’ve even got calls from resident associations asking us about the certificates and what they guidelines they need to comply with in order to get the clearance,” he says.

He adds that while there has been a significant improvement in safety, they are still not moving at the pace he personally hoped they would. “Although I understand the ground realities. In fact, the fire department didn’t even have enough personnel for inspections after the ruling regarding the PIL,” he explains.

Outside of their push for policy changes they also honour and recognise ‘fire champions’, those who have done their bit for the initiative. They usually use the annual memorial to recognise these heroes.

For the 10th anniversary of the event, they are planning to pay tribute to those who lost their lives. In association with the National Gallery of Modern Art they will be celebrating their lives with a combination of music performances and an exhibition by city’s photojournalists.

They also had a creative writing/painting contest for students in the age group of 11 to 14 years. With the theme of Fire Safety, the participating students could express themselves either through a poem, a painting or an essay, which could be a case study or a solution/idea to address fire safety.

Although it started off as a city-specific initiative, they have grown to have a national impact. “When a fire broke out at the Surat coaching classes last year, both the media and individuals reached out to us asking about fire safety and what could’ve been done better,” he concludes.