GST Bhavan fire: 2,000 evacuated within 30 mins, files, documents gutted van fire

Around 2,000 staffers were safely evacuated within 30 minutes from Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bhavan in Mazagaon, where a fire broke out on Monday morning. The

Around 2,000 staffers were safely evacuated within 30 minutes from Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bhavan in Mazagaon, where a fire broke out on Monday morning. The level-four (major) fire started on the eighth floor and spread to the ninth and 10th floors. Sixteen fire tenders from the Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB) took three hours to douse the fire and officials said no records were lost in the incident. There were also no casualties. The state government has ordered a structural audit before the offices return to GST Bhavan.

HT Image

At around 12.35pm, a fire broke out in GST Bhavan, a ground-plus-nine storey structure in central Mumbai. The fire started on the eighth floor and spread quickly to two more floors due the presence of papers and wooden material in the building. “Entire ninth and part of 10th floors were gutted in the fire. Files, documents on ninth floor were totally gutted,” said chief fire officer PS Rahangdale. “Thankfully, the firefighting system in the building was in working condition and added to our efforts,” said Rahangdale.

Staffers said most were alerted to the fire soon after it broke out and were able to get out of the building using staircases since lower floors were unaffected and the smoke had not spread. “The fire was limited to eighth, ninth and 10th floors, hence it was easy to evacuate people by using the lower floors,” said Bhimrao Midbaokar who works in the building. Within 30 minutes, approximately 2,000 staffers were evacuated. No casualties have been reported.

By 3.30pm, the fire had been brought under control, said additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani. Deputy chief minister and state finance minister Ajit Pawar visited the site along with municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi and other top officials on Monday afternoon. Pawar said a probe would be conducted into the cause of the fire and clarified no records were lost due to digitisation of documents. The audit department was on the ninth floor.

“Preliminary reports show there was no damage caused to official files due to the fire,” confirmed Manoj Sounik, additional chief secretary, finance department. “Most of the files will be recovered in their soft forms from our server,” he added.

The state has also ordered a structural audit of GST Bhavan before the building is declared open again.

The authorities have pointed out that the ninth floor of the building was illegal and was in the process of being demolished.However BMC official refused to comment on this.