The Telangana State Disaster Response and Fire Services Department is going ahead and filing a charge-sheet in the court against owners of Hotel Katriya for continuing to function without the mandatory fire clearance certificate and ignoring the advisory issued for taking up remedial measures to make the building safe.
The department has already declared the nine-storied building “unsafe” and a “fire hazard” for the occupants after it battled a fire a couple of weeks ago for close to two hours. It came to the authorities’ knowledge then that the hotel had not taken the provisional No Objection Certificate (NoC) after adding six floors and had also not bother to respond to the notices issued when it sought a renewal of NoC three years ago.
Senior Fire Services Department officials, seeking anonymity, indicated that the charge-sheet is being filed irrespective of the decision to be taken by the other departments – Home and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), licensing authorities for trade, as they have been already notified to ensure that action was taken as per the law as safety of ‘occupants could not be guaranteed’ and the ‘building was not fit for occupation’.
The department officials, after an inspection earlier this month, had said in a report submitted to the higher authorities that of the 943 automatic sprinkler systems required, it had 622 leaving a deficit of 321 systems. The hotel also had 54 automatic detection and alarm systems when the requirement was 226 more.
The report had indicated that the management had failed to remove function halls on the basement and lower ground currently being used as banquet halls as these were supposed to be assembly points and not permissible as per the National Building Code-2005.
The mandatory 12 metres all round setbacks was missing and there were ‘illegal constructions’ in the open spaces, there was no fire door while fire fighting equipment was not in working condition, it said. The department had notified the management in 2013 to rectify the deficiencies identified, obtain NoC for occupancy for the entire nine floors and pay ₹10 per sq. ft as fees.
“This too was not complied with and since the hotel has violated the Fire Services Act under various sections, we are going ahead with legal prosecution,” informed senior officials.
