Fire dept will go to any heights to audit coaching centres
Delhi Fire Services Act covers only buildings taller than 15 metres, many centres don’t fall under this ambit
NEW DELHI: After finding that coaching centres in buildings with a height less than 15 metres are not covered under the ‘Delhi Fire Service Act 2007’, the Delhi Fire Service (DFS) will conduct a study with officials from the Directorate of Education (DOE) and other stakeholders to bring them under its ambit to ensure safety, government officials said on Saturday.
The official said that a committee to conduct the study was formed by the Delhi government which is expected to submit its report within two months.the panel is scheduled to meet for the first time this week.
When contacted, DFS director Atul Garg confirmed the developments. “This will help us implement fire safety mandates in such buildings so that even if any such accident takes place, chances of casualties are nil or minimum,” Garg said.
The panel comprises officials from the Directorate of Education, Delhi Fire Services, fire safety experts and stake holders that will include coaching centre owner’s and those running them, he added.
Another officer from the department said that once coaching centres are covered, they will send notices to the coaching institute owners across the city directing them to provide the latest building plans and mention the number of students enrolled with them.
The move comes after a fourstorey commercial complex housing a coaching institute in Surat, Gujarat, caught fire killing at least 22 students and injuring 20 others in May this year.
The students were killed either due to suffocation or falling off the windows in an attempt to escape the building.
The incident triggered fears that something similar could happen in the congested by-lanes of Delhi and three days after the incident, the Delhi government had ordered immediate inspection of all buildings having coaching centers across the capital.
The inspection that the Delhi Fire Service started in June revealed dangerously inadequate fire safety measures at coaching centres in the national capital. Some were using same entry and exit points, many had staircases narrower than the permitted width and a few did not have firefighting equipment.
“In most of tragic fire incidents, where lives are lost, these small and often neglected lapses contribute in a major way in adding up to the scale of the tragedy,” the officer explained.
A senior officer from the Delhi Fire Service, who did not wish to be named, said they also realised during the inspection that coaching centres in buildings lower than 15 metres height were not covered under the Fire Safety Act.
The officer said, accordingly, they requested the government to form a body so that a study can be conducted to identify such coaching centers in Delhi so that adequate measures could be taken to bring them under the ambit of the DFS.
In the previous inspections of coaching centres, we found that some were using same entry and exit points, many had staircases narrower than the permitted width and a few did not have firefighting equipment. These small lapses contribute in a major way to a tragedy.