While fire rescuers along with security and medical staff, including doctors and nurses, managed to evacuate 424 patients, the PGIMER is yet to get a renewal of the fire safety certificate of the Nehru Hospital block building where the fire erupted on Monday midnight.
According to sources, the engineering department of the PGI had applied for the certificate post-Covid in 2021 following which the Sector 11 fire station authorities had asked them to follow the fire safety guidelines as per the National Security Code.
Fire dept sent reminder to PGI on Sept 7
The fire department sent a reminder to the authorities concerned at the PGI on September 7 seeking update on the upgradation of fire safety process of the building.
“We sent a reminder to the PGI director and the engineering department regarding the update on the upgradation process regarding fire safety measures so that we could issue them the fire safety certificate which remains valid for three years,” said a senior fire officer.
Responding to the fire safety certificate renewal status, Rajesh Kumar, fire officer at the PGI said, “We are in the process of getting fire NOC for this building. The engineering department has applied for fire NOCs for a total of 13 PGIMER buildings.”
{{/usCountry}}Responding to the fire safety certificate renewal status, Rajesh Kumar, fire officer at the PGI said, “We are in the process of getting fire NOC for this building. The engineering department has applied for fire NOCs for a total of 13 PGIMER buildings.”
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, a senior municipal corporation official on condition of anonymity said that the PGI was sent several reminders since 2021 but they only have NOC for Nehru Hospital Extension building out of the total 14 buildings in the hospital.
“We can only send them reminders, but they actually have to complete the process of installation of fire safety equipment so that we can give them NOC or fire safety certificate,” he said.
Talking about the required installations, a senior fire officer said though the PGI has installed required fire safety equipment, the engineering department there is yet to install a few necessary things under fixed firefighting system at a few places in the building.
“The installation process of fire safety equipment under fixed firefighting system is under process. Though they have installed the safety equipment there, upgrades are required at a few places. After they complete that, we will issue them the NOC,” he said.
Notably, Chandigarh fire rescuers evacuated over 300 patients from the building while others were shifted to safe places by the hospital staff.