Three years after the fire at Carlton Towers that killed nine persons and injured dozens, fire safety in high rise buildings across the city still seems to be a far cry.
Following the horrendous fire, the High Court of Karnataka had directed the Department of Fire and Emergency Services to take up fire audit of the city’s high rises. Senior officials said fire audit of the 20,000-odd high rise buildings in the city was in progress and hoped to complete it by the deadline (December 2013).
Lengthy process
A senior official, on condition of anonymity, told The Hindu that “various levels of area officials” had been instructed to take up the fire audit. “The fire audit of each building takes around three months. The Fire Services officials first inspect the building, identify the lacunae, communicate the same to the building owner and give them time to rectify the same before issuing the Compliance Certificate.”
Staff shortage has also compounded the difficulties in taking up fire audit. A government notification on July 7, 2011 initially set the deadline for the fire audit for April 2012. This was later extended to December 2013 because of manpower problems. “The government approved the proposal to recruit 66 people only recently.”
The official conceded that at least 30 per cent of these high rise buildings did not have the requisite no-objection certificate (NOC) from the Fire Services Department. “Most of the high rises that are in the newly added areas of Yelahanka, Rajarajeshwarinagar, Mahadevapura, Bommanahalli and Dasarahalli have not obtained NOCs. These buildings were sanctioned by the erstwhile municipalities without even referring to the National Building Code,” the official added.
No guarantee
However, an NOC does not guarantee fire safety. “There are many areas in the city where the roads are so narrow that the fire tenders cannot reach the spot. This poses a huge challenge,” the official said.
Another problem is the lack of fire hydrants from where the tenders can draw water for fire fighting. The official said that there were more than 400 fire hydrants in the core city area in the 1970s and 1980s. These, over a period of time, have simply disappeared. “The pipelines have corroded and with road widening and various other reasons, there are no fire hydrants in the city anymore.” The Fire Services Department now relies on the seven or eight water-filling points that are at the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board’s ground-level reservoirs.
The official said the department was open to using treated water for fire fighting. “If the BWSSB intimates the department where the treated water is available, we can use the same,” the official added.
