Staff crunch delays Ggm fire safety survey

Gurugram: Launched in June in the wake of the fire at an illegally operated B&B facility in South Delhi’s Malviya Nagar that claimed at least 23 lives, the Gurugram fire department’s citywide fire-safety survey remains 50% complete, with officials attributing it to severe shortage of staff and field personnel

Gurugram: Launched in June in the wake of the fire at an illegally operated B&B facility in South Delhi’s Malviya Nagar that claimed at least 23 lives, the Gurugram fire department’s citywide fire-safety survey remains 50% complete, with officials attributing it to severe shortage of staff and field personnel.

Officials said Gurugram has a strength of 248 officers and fire fighters while the actual manpower needed is around 500. (Photo for representation)

An official said the same teams being required to juggle fire-safety inspections and emergency firefighting duties.

“Seven teams have been formed to conduct the surveys. However, these teams are also deployed for firefighting operations, which affects the pace of the survey at times,” said Narendra Yadav, fire safety officer (FSO) Sector 29, Gurugram.

Officials said Gurugram has a strength of 248 officers and fire fighters while the actual manpower needed is around 500.

At present, the department has inspected 667 paying guest (PG) accommodations, 94 hotels, 175 coaching centres, 157 restaurants and 11 guest houses.

HT had reported in July that the fire department had surveyed 642 PG accommodations operating without fire no-objection certificates (NOCs). The number has increased to 667 as of September 8, with only 25 additional establishments being inspected in the two months since the previous report.

Another issue which the fire department had highlighted is several workers are on a strike along with sanitation workers.

They joined the state-wide agitation demanding regularisation of contractual firemen and fire department drivers and recruitment against vacant fire department posts to address staff shortages.

The fire department had shared that they are working for more than 12-hours a day at times due to shortage of staff.

Gurugram has fire stations in Sector 29, Udyog Vihar, Bhim Nagar, Sector-37, Pataudi, Manesar and Sohna.

The city has 58 fire tenders of which six each are of the category of foam tenders and small tenders while at least 25 are water bowsers which have the capacity of storing more than 5,000 litres of water.

Besides, there are 10 motorcycles which are fixed with 40 litres water tanks to reach narrow lanes which can’t be accessed even by the small category tenders.