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Lucknow hotel fire: Varanasi cops start fire-safety check in hotels and hospitals
“We have launched a fire safety drive. This is to check if fire safety measures at the hotels here in Varanasi, were in place. Similar drive would also be carried out for the hospitals,” said A Satish Ganesh, police commissioner, Varanasi.
Hours after fire tragedy in a hotel at a posh locality in the state capital, where four died and more than half a dozen were injured on Monday, the police commissionerate, Varanasi, launched a drive to check if hotels and hospitals were complying with fire safety norms.
“We have launched a fire safety drive. This is to check if fire safety measures at the hotels here in Varanasi, were in place. Similar drive would also be carried out for the hospitals,” said A Satish Ganesh, police commissioner, Varanasi.
Varanasi is a top tourist destination in the state.
Ganesh said during the safety drive, it would be checked if hospitals or hotels were equipped with basic fire safety features.
“During this, we would be checking if the hotels and hospitals had an emergency exit and if the establishment had an NOC from the fire department,” read an order issued by the Varanasi police commissioner.
“Our teams would also check the fire safety equipment that are usually installed in hotels and hospitals. We would see if those equipment were in proper condition and suitably upgraded,” the commissioner said.
He has also directed the fire department to carry out fire safety audit of the hospitals and to make sure that all establishments had the NOC and were equipped with fire safety equipment.
Cops also checked city hotels and carried out a verification drive to see if fire safety equipment were in working condition or not.
However, it is not for the first time when such an exercise is being carried out in Varanasi. On April 8, the police commssionerate Varanasi had also issued notices to the city hotels after a major fire broke out in a residential apartment on April 7. The drive revealed that around 24 city hotels were not complying to fire safety norms, officials said.
