No coaching centre in city is fire safe: Officials

IS Kashyap, assistant divisional fire safety officer, said that all assistant fire safety officers have been sent across the different parts of the city to locate coaching centres, and serve notices to their owners to get them regularised or face closure.

Not a single coaching institute functioning from residential as well as industrial areas in the city has a valid no-objection certificate (NOC), officials said on Thursday. Surprisingly, the officials from the fire department said that they do not have any data on the number of coaching centres operating in the city.

Coaching centres in Sector 14 have been issued notices for running without an NOC. (HT File)

IS Kashyap, assistant divisional fire safety officer, said that all assistant fire safety officers have been sent across the different parts of the city to locate coaching centres, and serve notices to their owners to get them regularised or face closure.

“After examining our records, not a single coaching centre was found to have a valid NOC. As per the Haryana Fire Service Act, coaching centres fall under educational institution category thereby mandating them to have an NOC. Hence, we have initiated a survey. Officials have been sent to different parts of the city to locate coaching centres and direct their owners to adhere to fire safety norms or relocate to a building with a valid NOC, failure of which will see their properties being sealed,” Kashyap said.

Kashyap said that so far the fire department has served notices to owners of coaching centres in Sector 14 and New Railway Road to get them regularised.

He conceded that the department has no records on the number of coaching centres operating in the city and said that it is trying to cover those areas known to have such establishments.

“We are trying to cover coaching centres in phases. In the initial phase, we are sending our officials to areas such as Sector 14 and New Railway Road where a large number of coaching centres exist. Then we will cover industrial areas such as Udyog Vihar and Sector 34 where the chances of such establishments existing are lower,” said Kashyap.

Meanwhile, owners of around 10 coaching centres have sent application for procuring NOC from the fire department in the past six days, officials said. A final report on fire safety in coaching centres would be sent to the district administration on Monday, Kashyap said.

A senior fire official attributed low manpower to department’s poor coverage on NOCs in the city. “As per the guidelines in Haryana Fire Service Act, the Gurugram fire department needs to have over 800 employees to cater to the city’s requirements. However, we are currently operating with just 190 employees, and due to the gross shortage of personnel coverage of the city in regard to fire safety gets compromised,” the official said on the condition of anonymity.

On Wednesday, Kavita Jain, the Urban Local Bodies (ULB) minister, directed municipal corporations and committees to inspect all coaching centres, colleges, schools, movie theatres, hospitals, hotels, auditoriums, hostels, and high-rise buildings within a month to verify if they are adhering to fire safety norms.