Despite more than 10,000 fire incidents reported in the last one year, the Fire and Emergency Services department in Bengal is suffering from an acute shortage of staff with about 47% of the operative posts (personnel who are directly engaged in fire fighting) lying vacant.
Sources in the department told The Hindu that of the sanctioned 7,802 operative posts, about 3,667 are lying vacant. Minister of Fire and Engineering Sovan Chatterjee said the department has already hired 1,500 auxiliary fire operators and initiated the process to hire another 1,500 permanent staff.
Between January 2016 and 2017, 10,776 incidents of accidental fire took place in the State. In Kolkata alone, 2,132 incidents occurred. An official said loss of property in these incidents was valued at around ₹ 73 crore. But nearly 50% [2,340] of the sanctioned 4,748 key posts of fire fighters, who are at the forefront of operations, are lying vacant.
Auxiliary fire operator
According to a fire department official, instead of making fresh recruitment, the State government was hiring “poorly trained” contractual workers designated as auxiliary fire operator. Of the 1,178 posts of leaders, nearly 38% (447) are lying vacant.
“For the last three years, almost no proper recruitment has taken place in the department. Instead, only 1,472 auxiliary fire operators have been hired on contractual basis,” said a senior official.
As for the posts of sub-officers, who are the second-in-command of fire stations after the station officer, about 56% (242) of the total sanctioned strength of 427 are lying vacant. However, the current strength of station officers is comparatively better as 20% (48) of the 238 sanctioned posts are vacant.
