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54 per cent staff crunch, increase in calls ail PMC fire department
As per the data, the fire brigade has a serious shortfall of manpower for years now, out of the 910 posts, the fire brigade has 418 posts filled up while the remaining 492 are vacant, that is 54 per cent
The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) fire department is facing severe staff crunch and is working with a 54 per cent staff deficit. The department is also witnessing an increase in the number of fire incidents in, the and outside, city limits.
On Monday, January 6, a structure on the premises of the Pan Card Club in Baner was gutted. The fire went on for an hour and five fire tenders were rushed to the spot to douse it. Although no casualties were reported, this incident has shown the PMC fire brigade’s lack of preparedness to tackle such situations.
As per the data by the PMC’s fire brigade, the department received 27,289 fire calls in the past decade (between 2010 and 2019). According to officials, the calls have been increasing as the city limits increase. This in addition to the fire departments shortage of manpower raises serious questions on the city’s preparedness to tackle any fire.
As per the data, the fire brigade has a serious shortfall of manpower for years now, out of the 910 posts, the fire brigade has 418 posts filled up while the remaining 492 are vacant, that is 54 per cent.
Prabhat S Rahangdale, director, Maharashtra fire services said, “We have already approved the recruitment rules and have forwarded it to the urban development department. Considering the horizontal and vertical expansion of Pune, and fire department being the first responders in case of any emergency, it makes it even more important to recruit enough fire fighters. We are in constant process of following up on the issue and the matter is in progress.”
The data states that out of the 27, 289 fire calls that the fire brigade tackled in the past decade, 22,159 calls were from within the city while 327 were from outside the city limits but were attended by the fire brigade.
Prashant Ranpise, chief, PMC fire department said, “Fire calls have been increasing, but most of them are also calls for fire to garbage or grass. These calls are also recorded as fire calls. The city’s limits are increasing and we also attend to fire calls from outside the city where there is no machinery to tackle the fire or a similar emergency. The shortage of manpower poses a major challenge in tackling the increasing fire calls; despite repeated correspondence with the state government recruitment has been frozen.”
According to the data from the fire brigade, the year 2019 saw 2,227 fire calls out of which, 12 were from out of the city, 464 were due to electric short circuit, 136 were due to gas leak and 640 were garbage set on fire and remaining 975 fires due to reasons not known.
