Wanted: 10 more fire stations for city

Vadodara: While Vadodara grew manifold in size and population down the decades, its amenities, more specifically fire stations couldn’t keep pace. With not a single new station being added in the last seven years, the duty of only six fire stations of Vadodara Municipal Corporation to cover a city spread across 159 square kms turns out to be a mammoth task.
Vadodara at present has six fire stations and one emergency response centre of Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority. The last fire station that had come up in the city was in the TP-13 locality at Chhani in January 2012.
Though a proposal was made to add only one fire station at Vasna-Bhayli, but that too remains only on paper. The ill-equipped fire brigade personnel have to go as far as six km or even more to fight emergencies to areas including Por, Waghodiya, Savli and even more faraway places when an industrial fire takes place.
As of now, three fire stations – Panigate, Gajrawadi and Dandiya Bazaar – cater to the eastern part of city, Chhani fire station in north, Vadiwadi fire station entire western part and Makarpura GIDC fire station responds to emergencies in the southern part of city.
“Areas like Nizampura, Sama, Chhani, Dumad and up to Amitnagar Circle are covered by Chhani fire station,” said a fire official. Fatehgunj, Sayajigunj, Raopura, Karelibaug, Mandvi, Sultanpura, Navapura, Lalbaug and Akota are covered by Dandiya Bazaar fire station and Wadi, Pratapnagar, Dabhoi Road and Somatalav come under Gajrawadi while Panigate fire station responds to emergencies on Waghodiya Road, Sangam crossroads, Airport Road, Panigate, Warasia and Fatehpura. Vadiwadi covers Sarabhai Road, Subhanpura, Gotri, Race Course Road, Alkapuri, Vasna Road, Bhayli and all the way to Atladara.