The Telangana Disaster Response and Fire Services Department on Thursday will initiate prosecution against owners of eight buildings within the city and elsewhere in the districts coming under the high-risk category for not installing sufficient fire-fighting equipment. The department opines owners of these buildings had thereby violated the conditions of the no-objection certificate issued for occupancy.
These risky buildings came to the fore during the recent ‘surprise’ random inspections undertaken by the department on all structures that have taken fire NOCs. Instead of the annual inspections for renewal of the certificates, the department top brass has decided to go for select checks with the computer generated house numbers and officers.
“This is to remove any charges of bias and also because we have not been able to inspect each and every building annually due to several constraints. It also means our fire officer can land up in any of the high-rise buildings, public or private, to check for the fire safety measures at any time,” explained Director General Rajiv Ratan.
Inspections, in fact, of the potential high-risk buildings have been carried out for 32 buildings out of which 24 were found to be complaint in all respects.
The eight buildings for which prosecution will be taken up are: Ahsraya Educational Infrastructure Services Ltd., Kandlyakoya, Medchal; Anand Reddy & others, Road No.10, Banjara Hills; Prestige Builders, Humayunagar, Mehdipatnam; Bhupattramma Function Hall, Sircilla Road, Nizamabad; Arfah Gardens, Satnala Road, Adilabad district; Sri Prema 70 mm film theatre, Tukkuguda mandal, Ranga Reddy district; The Rishi Sairam Projects Pvt. Ltd., Srinagar Colony, Hyderabad, Syed Ather Hussain & others, Langar Houze.
Lacunae
Lacunae in fire fighting equipment in these buildings are fire hydrant and hose reels not working or unavailable, no water storage or pumps, illegal construction of floors, fire fighting systems not working, pumps switched off, non-existent or non-working fire alarms and so on, he said.
Fire complaint buildings are: BITS-Pilani, Jawaharnagar; L&T Metro Rail Station, Tarnaka & Mettuguda; Prasads Imax; Institute of Aeronautical Engineering, R.R. district; St. Joseph College, Himayatnagar; National Small Industries Corporation, Kushaiguda; Vanamali Agro-Farms, Madinaguda; Shilpa Kala Vedika, Madhapur; Star Children’s Hospital, Tigalaguntapally, Karimnagar.
Apollo Life Sciences Centre, Jubilee Hills, Institute of Public Enterprises, Shaikpet; GPR Mall and Multiplex, Kukatpally; Serene Estates, Multiplex at Saroornagar; Rainbow Hospitals, Road No.10, Banjara Hills; Radhakrishna Automobiles, Sanatnagar; Yashoda Hospitals, Somajiguda; Johnson Grammar School, West Marredpally; Chandramma Educational Society, Suraram, Qutbullapur & CMR Institute of Technology, Medchal.
The DG pointed out that the fire safety measures and standards have been detailed in the department website and hence, any violations from the buildings which had taken NOCs would be dealt with severely under the law.
