Municipal Administration and Urban Development Principal Secretary Arvind Kumar directed GHMC Commissioner M. Dana Kishore to appoint special squads to conduct fire safety audit of commercial buildings and complete the task in a month.
He also asked the GHMC commissioner to make a weekly assessment of the work carried out, following which a comprehensive report should be submitted to the government at the end of the month.
This is in the context of recent inspections by Mr. Arvind Kumar of commercial buildings at various locations where serious lacunae in compliance with fire safety standards were observed. Hotels, hostels, restaurants, hospitals, schools and function halls were noticed without fire safety measures.
Need for vulnerability analysis by the GHMC was felt in all densely populated, important and hazardous buildings, so that the requirement of equipment and manpower may be assessed and fixed, a statement said.
Hence, Mr. Kumar asked the GHMC to conduct an emergency fire and safety audit of commercial buildings in areas under its jurisdictions to examine whether these buildings had fire safety standards to respond in the event of a fire, whether they had proper fire exit mechanism in place and whether the fire safety equipment was maintained periodically.
He said that a comprehensive screening should be done in all cases and vulnerable buildings should be accounted for.
He directed the officials to serve notices and initiate appropriate action and ensure that there were no violations.
