State govt to fight fires with separate prevention wing

Gandhinagar: Gujarat govt will shortly set up a separate fire prevention wing in all municipal corporations and municipalities with the objective of conducting activities to prevent incidences of fire. The move has come in the wake of the Rajkot gaming zone inferno and other similar instances in the recent past.
Sources in the urban development department (UDD) said that the new wing will be created within the next fortnight and additional budgetary allocation will be made to civic bodies for recruiting personnel to the wing.
“Govt is also exploring the possibility of announcing a policy or amending existing fire safety laws, so that the prevention wing has more teeth. This wing will be primarily responsible for all fire prevention activities like periodic inspections, educational and awareness activities and the like,” sources said, adding that UDD will be the nodal department.
“In addition to conventional firefighting operations, life safety and fire prevention are being given special attention. The new wing is being created to ensure that firefighting preparedness requirements are in place. This includes conducting regular drills,” sources said.
Officials said that the Gujarat State Fire Academy (GSFA) will meet the need for additional manpower for the wing and establishing a system of knowledge sharing and peer learning from the incidents and accidents across the state.
Sources added the Mutual Aid Scheme will be extended to all major cities to make fighting industrial fires more efficient.
Under the scheme, private industrial fire service departments will adopt a model of aiding each other. This scheme has been working successfully in Jamnagar and Vadodara, the sources said.
Officials said that a root cause analysis of why candidates for fire officers are not available will also be undertaken and an action plan with a timeline for required infrastructure and manpower will be formulated.
“Buildings with large footfalls are under special scrutiny and a system of mandatory random inspections is being adopted. Municipal corporations will display names and addresses of buildings which do not have a valid fire safety certificate,” the sources said.