The Mumbai Fire Brigade on Thursday unveiled 28 vehicles specially procured for the newly formed Fire Safety Compliance Cell.
The new cell will comprise 34 officers from the Fire Brigade who will jointly carry out daily inspections across 24 wards of the city with officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray said, “All previous inaugurations I have attended were for different fire-fighting equipment. But today’s inauguration is different; it is for fire prevention.”
Station officers at fire stations across the city will be assigned a ward and will be given the post of Designated Officer (Fire Safety). According to a senior fire official, the officers will conduct inspection drives in the morning and perform the duties as station officers in the evening.
“We are yet to finalise the standard operating procedure of the cell. It should be finalised in two to three days,” the official said.
The fire officers will be expected to co-ordinate with assistant commissioners of the wards. Senior fire officials also said that there was a proposal to recruit 70 station officers to help with the increased responsibilities.
All speakers at the inauguration stressed the importance of compliance to the various fire safety rules and norms. Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta said that the role of the BMC will now be expanded to include compliance.
He said, “Earlier the role of the BMC was limited to providing services and granting various permissions. Now we will be checking whether establishments continue to adhere to the norms required for those permissions.”
Mr. Mehta said that fire officials now have the authority to seal establishments found flouting fire safety norms and they will be exercising this authority in the coming days. Mr. Mehta also said that work is under way to create IT infrastructure for compliance. The system, he said, would be in place by next month.
