Flagging off as many as 11 fire vehicles for 11 Assembly constituencies, Punjab local Government Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Wednesday said eight more would be added the next week. He also reiterated the Fire Directorate and Fire Prevention Act would be a reality soon.
“Out of 11 fire vehicles flagged off today, each would cater to the needs of Jalandhar, Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Dinanagar, Dhuri, Sunam, Faridkot, Nabha, Dera Baba Nanak, Raikot and Nakodar cities,” said Sidhu after flagging off the vehicles in the presence of MlAs from these constituencies.
Sidhu said apart from these 11 fire vehicles, eight more would be flagged off next week with one each for Jalandhar and Patiala, and two each for ludhiana, Bathinda and Amritsar.
“A Fire Services Directorate would come up and a Fire Prevention Act would also be put into place regarding which deliberations would be held during the course of the next cabinet meeting,” he said.
Describing fire services as “essential services”, Sidhu said the State Government would observe ‘Fire Extinguishing Service Week’ on annual basis from April 17 to 21.
“Punjab Government nurtures a vision to put the State firmly on track in terms of holistic development across all sectors thus converting the disasters left behind by the previous regime into grand triumphs,” he said while interacting with the mediapersons in the presence of Education Minister Aruna Chaudhary and Forest and Wildlife Preservation Minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot.
Sidhu said as per his promise made to Sunam MlA from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Aman Arora in the State Assembly, he is flagging off the first vehicle to Sunam - the land of Shaheed Udham Singh.
He also made it clear that the State Government was committed to full scale progress of Punjab on all parameters without any bias towards any section.
lashing out at the previous SAD-BJP regime, the Minister said out of Rs 90 crore grant given by the Central Government, only Rs 17 crore was spent and the rest was resumed.
Due to this non-utilisation and haphazard use of funds, Punjab had been placed in ‘red zone’ by the Union Government, he said.
He pointed that in all, there are 195 fire vehicles for 54 fire stations in Punjab out of which 114 are outdated.
Interestingly, one of the fire tenders developed a problem near Sector 32-33 roundabout minutes after it was flagged off, causing a traffic jam on the route.