Pune: Manpower crunch forces the Pune fire department to appoint firemen on contract basis to be deputed at Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)-run Covid-19 care centre (CCC). PMC issued a tender to call agencies to provide trained firemen.
After fifteen people died in the Virar (Mumbai) fire incident at a Covid hospital last month, a minor fire incident was reported at the Kamala Nehru hospital parking lot in Pune. As many as 24 Covid patients had died after oxygen supply was disrupted due to a leak in the main oxygen storage tank at a Nashik hospital on April 21.
Following these incidents, PMC issued an order to depute two firemen for 24x7 on 16 Covid-19 care centres (CCC) for surveillance as well as nodal officers to the medical oxygen supply system of PMC hospitals. However, it was not applied because of manpower shortage. Now, the corporation has floated tender and invited agencies to supply trained firemen to depute on Covid care centres.
Prashant Ranpise, PMC head of fire department, said, “Due to lack of manpower, we have taken the decision to hire trained firemen from private agencies such as government recognised fire institutes. At present, Pune city has 14 fire stations and 296 staff. As per the state government sanctioned staff, we need 910 firemen. In 2014, the strength was 510. After that, there is no recruitment at the fire department and firemen retire every year. Around 15 firemen are going to retire next month.”
{{/usCountry}}Prashant Ranpise, PMC head of fire department, said, “Due to lack of manpower, we have taken the decision to hire trained firemen from private agencies such as government recognised fire institutes. At present, Pune city has 14 fire stations and 296 staff. As per the state government sanctioned staff, we need 910 firemen. In 2014, the strength was 510. After that, there is no recruitment at the fire department and firemen retire every year. Around 15 firemen are going to retire next month.”
{{/usCountry}}In a week, the department receives 35-40 fire calls and the count touched 70 during summer. The main station is located at Bhavani peth which has 40 firemen. There are nine firemen at work daily in each shift.