Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Training eludes Corporation schools

CHENNAI: The combination of new fire safety equipment and the training to use is them is yet to become a reality in many schools of the Chennai Corporation.

A CAG report released earlier this week pointed to the failure of five municipal corporations (other than Chennai) to provide fire extinguishers in 151 schools. However, some schools in the Corporation limits that have the equipment are yet to train the students in fire safety measures.

The fire extinguishers in a few schools, where students have been trained to use them, have expired, heads of the institutions said. Students of a few other schools said they did not know of such equipment having been installed.

In an initiative of the Corporation in February, Local Administration Minister M.K. Stalin distributed fire extinguishers and iron buckets to representatives of Corporation schools.

The proposal to provide fire safety equipment was presented in the budget for 2007-08. As many as 850 pieces of fire extinguishing equipment were distributed to more than 300 Corporation schools.

However, a few gaps seem to exist in the execution. At the Corporation Higher Secondary School at Little Mount, students said they were not aware of any fire safety equipment installed on the premises. When queried, one of the students said: “You mean those red-coloured cylinders on the wall? No, I have not seen any on the campus, and there has been no fire drill or demonstration.”

The training and mock drills planned for these schools are yet to be completed, if the responses of the students are any indication. In a school in Central Chennai, a student pointed to the fire extinguisher perched on the wall, but had no idea how it had to be used. “We don’t know how to use it,” said a Std. XII student.

The head of a Corporation Higher Secondary School said the last time the equipment was replaced was a few years ago. “The extinguisher has, perhaps, expired. The Corporation initiates several useful measures for schools and students, but those involved in the execution do not care as much,” he said, requesting anonymity.

At a high school in South Chennai, students were aware of how to use the equipment, but the head of the school said the equipment had not been renewed.

According to K. Shanmugavelayutham, convener, Tamil Nadu Forum for Crèche and Childcare Services (TN-FORCES), all schools should to adhere to the recommendations of the Justice K. Sampath Commission, which went into the Kumbakonam fire tragedy that claimed the lives of more than 90 schoolchildren in 2004.

Director of Fire and Rescue Services K.R. Shyamsundar said mock drills were being organised periodically to cover one school, one college and one public place in each district every month. “For students, evacuation drills are also being held.”

All the schools would certainly be covered by the ongoing training, he said.

Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni said all schools had been given the fire safety equipment. “We are covering all middle, high and higher secondary schools in the training. It is not easy to have 20,000 students trained at one go. So we have identified peer groups with student representatives who will, in turn, train their friends very soon.”

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