Last year, the Local Self-Government Department of the State government introduced a set of amendments to the Kerala Municipal Building Rules (KMBR) and Kerala Municipality Act, aimed at improving ease of doing business in the State.
One of the major changes was regarding the no-objection certificate to be obtained from the Fire and Rescue Services Department for getting building permit from the civic body.
As per the amendment, the owners need to submit only a self-attested application along with a certificate from the architect or engineer who prepared the plan to get fire clearance for buildings that are between 300 and 1,000 square metres in area and less than 15 metres high. A similar amendment was made to the Kerala Panchayat Building Rules too.
Complaints
This change in rule has meant that even two-storeyed commercial buildings would not be checked during the periodic fire audits taken up by the department, thus diminishing the possibility of the owners of such establishments following fire safety norms. Despite the KMBR amendment, some local bodies had not implemented the changes. Complaints regarding this were made to the LSG department, following which the government issued a second circular asking the local bodies to strictly follow the amendments.
“It is unfortunate that such a change has been made in the fire safety norms in the name of improving ease of doing business rankings. Even when there were stricter norms, the periodic checks were not happening,” said an official of the city Corporation.
