After three days of the devastating crane accident that occurred at Maharaja Bada, many aspects of mismanagement and incompetence at the Gwalior Fire Brigade have come to light.
The accident caused by total negligence, had killed three employees of the Gwalior Municipal Corporation, attached to the Fire Brigade, while one was critically injured.
The injured is battling for his life at the government hospital here. The accident occurred when the employees were putting up the national flag on top of the historical post office building situated in Bada.
Preliminary investigation about the accident has revealed that only 30% of the staff at the Fire Brigade has any sort of training to handle emergencies. Even the drivers of the cranes are not trained to handle such complicated vehicles. According to experts the crane should be turned only at 20 degrees but it was learnt that the crane was turned at 28 degrees when the accident occurred.
According to many staff members at the Fire Brigade even proper uniforms are not given to the staff. Some of them even claimed that there was high-level corruption in the purchase of the cranes, and because of that the cranes that are used at the Fire Brigade are below par in quality. However there is no proof for this charge.
The staff also pointed out the shortage of proper safety equipment.
The Fire Brigade office at Maharaja Bada is very old and according to staff and people living around it could collapse any day. On being asked, the authorities at the Gwalior Municipal Corporation said that the newly appointed Acting Municipal Commissioner, Ashish Tiwari will be conducting a thorough investigation to fix responsibility and to take remedial action. In the meantime, a sum of Rs 4 lakh each was handed over to the kin of the deceased by the outgoing Deputy Municipal Commissioner Mukul Gupta.