Fire department lens on Ranchi's puja pandals

RANCHI: The district administration on Sunday directed the fire department to issue a fire safety advisory to every pandal to ensure maximum compliance of rules. A team of senior officials from the district administration, including Ranchi deputy commissioner Manoj Kumar and officials from the fire and electricity department, inspected several puja pandals and issued instructions accordingly.

"We are mainly concerned with fire and electricity regulations. The entry, exit and emergency routes and areas for separate queues for males and females were also inspected. We made all relevant instructions clear to the organisers and puja committee members," Kumar said. Last year, a puja pandal at Ratu road was gutted in fire on Dussehra.

Since several pandals are still being set up, a detailed list of instructions will be handed over to the puja committee members in the next two days. Kumar said some of the organisers have cited budget constraints in implementing the provisions of fire safety and electricity. "They will have to stock five buckets of sand and water at each pandal," he said.

At one pandal, the administration found the exit route extremely narrow owing to encroachment. An electric wire was also found crossing over a pandal at Church Gate. The electricity and the fire department immediately took note of the sensitive cases and directed the puja committees accordingly to ensure safety. The organisers of a puja at Chandrashekar Azad colony were asked to increase the size of the gate. As many as 700 CCTV cameras have been installed across the city to monitor the celebrations. Every pandal has also been asked to install the cameras.