Uttarakhand Fire and Emergency Services (UFES) lack the necessary rights for the strict enforcement of fire safety norms in the state. It can only serve notices to those who are not following the norms.
However Dehradun Chief Fire Officer Sandeep Kumar Rana said that a proposal for the amendment in rules and regulations for fire safety is being considered by the State administration.
CFO Rana said on Tuesday, “We are serving notices to those coaching centres and commercial entities which are not following the fire security measures. They have been given the time period of seven days to rectify all the lapses given in the norms.
If we talk about our rights, we can serve notices but cannot seal the building. For Challan and other necessary rights a proposal is under consideration at administration level.
In case they do not act as required within seven days, we will foward our report to the district magistrate and senior superintendent of police for further action.”
When asked about areas where it will be difficult for them to provide rescue and fire fighting facilities because of encroachments he said, “In the city, we have marked Paltan Bazaar, Dhamawala, Macchi Bazaar, Tyagi Road, Premnagar, Khudbuda Mohalla and Raipur Basti.
Earlier the then City Magistrate Manuj Goyal had conducted a drive on encroachments at Moti Bazaar where about 20 to 22 people were served notices at the time, but the situation is still the same.”
In the ongoing drive in which fire department is issuing notices to coaching centres and commercial entities that are operating without adopting fire safety measures, 21 notices were issued by Dehradun CFO on Tuesday.
Among these four were served to enterprises in Dehradun, six each in Rishikesh and Selaqui, and five in Mussoorie.
It is pertinent to mention here that earlier notices were served to 12 institutions on Saturday and to 22 institutions on Monday by the Dehradun CFO.
The UFES has started inspecting coaching institutes and commercial institutions in the wake of the coaching institute fire at Surat in Gujarat which had led to the death of more than 20 students recently.