Punjab Government would soon enact a Fire Services Act, making it mandatory for every new building to be constructed strictly as per the fire safety norms.
“The local Government Department would soon bring a Fire Services Act in the cabinet meeting,” said State local Government Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Wednesday after flagging off eight more fire tenders for as many cities or towns in the presence of the State Technical Education and Industrial Training Minister, Charanjit Singh Channi, and five MlAs. The municipalities of Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr, Samana, Tarn Taran, Patti, Sirhind, Zira and Chamkaur Sahib got the new fire tenders on Wednesday.
Among MlAs were Congress’ Kuljit Singh Nagra, Harminder Singh Gill, Sunder Sham Arora, Rajinder Singh, and Dharampal Agnihotri.
Only recently, Sidhu had flagged off 11 fire tenders for various cities.
Sidhu pointed that the establishment of a separate Fire Directorate was approved in the previous Cabinet meeting for which funds to the tune of Rs 2 crore annually were also sanctioned.
“The formation of this Directorate would result in it being equipped with new vehicles, trained drivers and firemen apart from ultra-modern fire suits for the firemen,” he said.
Sidhu said that Punjab earlier had 195 fire tenders out of which 114 had outlived their utility. “The present State Government has, till date, dedicated 19 fire tenders in the service of the State,” he added.
“To cope up with the fire incidents, a fire tender after 50,000 population is the need of the moment for fulfilling which I have set a target of providing 500 fire tenders during the course of next five years to all the cities and towns of the state,” he declared, adding that presently, only Mohali is equipped with a modernized fire tender having hydraulic stairs which is a necessity for high rise buildings where as no other city has such a vehicle.
Sidhu added that the Department would strive for providing state-of-the-art fire tenders worth Rs 4 to 8 crore for big corporation cities as these would come in handy in case of any emergency concerning high rise buildings. “I would strive for providing fire tender worth Rs 4 crore to the cities with more than three lakh population,” he added.
lashing out at the previous regime for completely ignoring the fire services sector, Sidhu said that Rs 3.22 crore sent to Punjab by the Centre under a scheme, which folded up in March 2013, of National Disaster Management, but the then government sent a Utilization Certificate (UC) of just Rs 58 lakh while choosing to sit on the rest of Rs 2.64 crore worth UCs during the past four years.
“The Department rectify this mess and vigorously pursue the case of funds it gets under the National Disaster Management,” he added.