Skill development of home guards in focus

BHUBANESWAR:Director General of Fire Services and Commandant General (home guards) and Director of Civil Defence, Cuttack, Bijay Kumar Sharma, on Friday informed that they will focus on skill development of home guards along with advanced training of the fire personnel.

“Home guards are an extremely important auxiliary force as they are engaged in variety of works, including running of the police stations where they perform computer and scripting work, guard prisoners, among others. So, if we develop their skills, they can take care of a large requirement of extra manpower at the police stations,” Sharma said. “For that we need to train them and provide proper mentoring so that they emerge as good as constables,” he said.

The senior officer also stated that efforts are being made to develop the fire stations as emergency response units. “There are more than 300 fire stations in the State and they are not just doing fire work, they are also attending emergency response cases. There is need to develop the fire station as a fire and emergency response unit. The idea is to make the fire personnel the first responders to an emergency whether it is any natural calamity or accidents,” he said.

Sharma also stressed that any area which has large footfall, large congregation of people should have a full proof fire prevention strategy. He informed that owners of several commercial buildings have applied for fire clearance and some of them have been asked to do things they have not done like installing fire extinguishers, having proper parking lots, among others.

“Many of them have not come under the umbrella as yet. Those buildings will be identified and accordingly notices will be issued. We will make sure that the owners of the commercial buildings comply with the Odisha Fire Rules, 2017, so that they do not jeopardize the lives of the people going there,” Sharma said.