'Most of the owners of various buildings do not renew their NOCs every year.'
Uttarakhand has done very little to improve its fire-fighting systems, especially in big buildings and factories, despite major fire tragedies taking place in the country, like the recent mishap at AMRI Hospital in Kolkata that left 91 dead.
Top police officials here said that hundreds of factories, hotels, hospitals and multiplexes that have come up in the hill state during the past five to six years have ill-equipped fire safety systems. The situation is much worse in the hill resorts of Mussoorie and Nainital where hotels are precariously built in close proximity.
The situation is no better in Haridwar and Udhamsingh Nagar districts where over 2,000 factories were established during the past few years, cashing on the heavy tax incentives available in the hill state. Barring big factories like HUL, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto and others, most of the small units do not follow fire-fight norms especially in areas like the Bhagwanpur industrial belt.
During the past few years, fires have broken in one or two factories in Haridwar but these incidents failed to ring alarm bells. Fortunately, there had been no major casualties in such fires. “If there had been no big fires in our state, that does not mean we should not improve our system,” said a top police official.
A police official working at the Dehradun fire office said most of the owners of various buildings do not renew thier NOCs every year.
"When a building is constructed, we give them certificate. But in most of the cases, the owners of these buildings do not renew the NOCs," said the official.
The official also conceded that the fire service department was not having much manpower to make regular checks on factories and buildings.
When contacted, DIG fire service, J C Pant, said he was satisfied with the existing fire system in Uttarakhand but admitted that there had been no survey conducted in the recent past in order to improve the fire-fighting system in the hill state.
