Deccan Chronicle:Wednesday, February 01, 2012.
The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) on Tuesday informed the Madras high court that no fire safety measures were in place on Ranganathan Street and Usman Road area of T. Nagar, where several commercial buildings were situated.
R. Venkatesan, member secretary of CMDA, said the department of fire and rescue services had conducted an inspection for fire and life safety measures of commercial buildings at Ranganathan Street and Usman Road, according to the instructions of a monitoring committee, and pointed out several potential causes of a fire in that area.
The reasons included narrow, congested roads and heavy traffic leading to restricted approach and access to the vulnerable spot, which would \affect the timely response, as well as building violations, which would severely affect the movement, maneuvering and access of fire fighting vehicles to the building and thus severely restrict the capabilities of the fire and rescue services department.
The other building violations take the form of additional floors, thereby increasing the fire load, lack of escape staircases/ blocked or locked escapes and exists, which pose serious threat for effective evacuation at times of emergency. Besides, in most multi-storeyed and special commercial buildings, the statutory requirement of water storage for exclusive fire fighting was either inadequate or absent and this was coupled with the absence of fixed fire fighting installations.
“Thus from the above reasons, it is clear evident that no fire safety measures are available in Ranganathan Street and Usman Road area of T. Nagar,” he said. With regard to locking and sealing, Venkatesan said most of the buildings covered in the T. Nagar Survey Report were commercial establishments run by a single firm.
The notice was issued on all owners of the building and it was the duty of the owners to inform their tenants, he said in his counter filed to a batch of petitions relating to unauthorised constructions in T. Nagar.
Buildings violate norms, High Court told
The CMDA on Tuesday informed the Madras high court that a few illegal buildings on Ranganathan Street and Usman Road in T. Nagar have not complied with fire safety norms.
The fire department had also in its findings pinned down several commercial buildings for not complying with fire safety norms in T. Nagar. Residents of T. Nagar, who had obtained documents through RTI exposing the violation of fire safety norms in the locality, have alleged that no firms had cared to reply to the show-cause notices sent by the fire department.
“Almost all the buildings in the narrow Ranganathan Street and several commercial buildings dotting Usman Road have not complied with fire safety rules,” said V.S. Jayaraman, secretary, Motilal Street Residents Welfare Association, T. Nagar, he said.
The RTI reply that their association obtained from the Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services (TNFRS) department last year revealed that commercial establishments on Ranganathan Street in T. Nagar had not complied with building norms, including fire safety measures.
“TNFRS, in its reply, said that a safety audit conducted by the department in 2009 found that 90 per cent of the buildings had violated norms, after which they decided to inspect all the buildings that were in violation of fire and life safety system,” he said.
The department added that not even a single firm had replied to the show-cause notices issued by them.
“The department said the traders/builders were not spending a few lakh rupees for creating fire safe environment in T. Nagar and Ranganathan Street in particular,” Jayaraman pointed out. “These establishments should take care of the customers as well as the welfare of the public who residing nearby their shops,” he said.
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