The death of 43 persons in an inferno in Delhi has also elicited focus on the lax fire safety norms and commercial enterprises operating illegally from residential buildings in Dehradun.
Conditions similar to the situation in Delhi exist in Dehradun too but surprisingly the Dehradun mayor Sunil Uniyal 'Gama' says that he is unaware of the situation in the city. When asked about the situation in Dehradun, the mayor told this correspondent that he knows nothing about this and that one should ask the fire service.
Though the mayor feels that it is the job of the fire serviced to keep a track of it, citizens of the state’s provisional capital have a different stand on the issue.
According to one such concerned citizen Ashish Garg, the city lacks fire preparedness. He said that the older areas in the city are too congested and heaving with people and unnecessary buildings.
“The roads are so narrow that it is quite impossible for fire trucks to enter these localities,” said Garg.
He said that even if for once we ignore these roads and lanes, the planned buildings like malls and stores too are lacking fire or disaster preparedness.
“Though they have installed the fire hydrants and required material to prevent fire, one is not sure whether these are regularly checked to ensure if they are in a working condition or not,” he added.
“The pipes which the fire engineers use to extinguish fire need to be checked on regular basis,” he said.
Another citizen Nishan GK feels that the Government and the building owners must conduct fire safety drills and maintain smoke suppression systems in the buildings.“The concerned authority must employ experts to chalk out safety measures and implement them,” he said. One of the citizens expressed that if the government officials will not consider the seriousness of this matter then who will.
“If you will visit the MCD or MDDA, the authorities will turn a blind eye to such issues. We hope that now after the unfortunate incident in Delhi, they will do something about it,” said a local resident, Karuna Bhola. It is pertinent to mention here that earlier this year during May, in the aftermath of the coaching class inferno in Surat, Gujarat which had caused at least 20 deaths, the authorities in Dehradun had served notices to various institutions. However, after the usual formalities were met on paper, the issue of fire safety was forgetten. Observers point out that authorities tend to focus on vital issues like fire safety only after major accidents.
Even then, the focus is largely on meeting official formalities on paper rather than on ensuring necessary actions and precautions on ground.