Times of India: Thane: Saturday, September 20, 2014.
Housing
society ignoring fire safety norms can invite trouble for its office bearers,
but fire brigade officials can go scot free.
According to
the information procured under the Right To Information (RTI) by Shiv Sena's
former mayor from Thane Ashok Vaiti there is no provision in rules to punish
fire brigade officials for negligence of duty when it comes to implementation
of fire safety norms by the housing societies.
"It is a
classic case of existence of strange rules in India. Fire brigade department
conducts inspection and audits of housing colonies and complexes for the fire
safety norms. However, when it comes to non compliance of the fire safety norms
the responsibility is of the society members, but there is no provision in
rules to take action against fire brigade officials for their negligence of
duty," said a close associate of Vaiti.
According to
rules every, housing society needs to get fire audit done, but there are rare
cases of societies thoroughly following fire safety norms. The issue of housing
society compliance with fire safety came to the fore few months back after an
incident where two senior citizens died when a fire broke out in a penthouse of
Sunderban society in Thane.
The
approximate population of Thane city is estimated over 18 lakhs, but despite
rapid growth of city the fire brigade department has not expanded in same
proportion. For the entire Thane city there are merely five fire stations where
as the requirement of the city according to population is of nearly 14 fire
brigade stations.
Citizens are
upset with the local and state administration for not giving go ahead for the
fire department's proposal to set up additional nine fire brigade stations to
cater the city. "The delay indicates casual approach of the administration
on such crucial subject like setting up new fire stations," Anand Parab,
from Thane said.
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