Police complaints against coaching classes over fire safety

Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation's fire and emergency services department has filed police complaints against six coaching institutes that violated fire safety guidelines thereby putting the students at risk.
The institutes against whom complaints were filed include Sneha Tuition Classes in Mhalgi Nagar, Career Academy of Science in Mahal, Calibre Nova Classes in Mahal, Sharda Classes in Pratap Nagar, Resonance Adventures and Gaur Tuition Classes on Central Avenue. Complaints have been filed at Sakkardara, Kotwali, Pratap Nagar and Lakadganj police stations.
In the wake of the Surat coaching class fire, which claimed lives of 22 students on May 24, the department had carried out inspections of coaching classes operating in the city.
“The inspections are still on. So far we have issued notices to 96 institutes, where thousands of students take coaching to comply firefighting systems,” said chief fire officer of NMC’s fire and emergency services department Rajendra Uchake.
Of these, 34 institutes were declared unsafe and show-cause notices were issued to them. These were given 10 days to rectify shortcomings. The fire department has also asked Orange City Water and MSEDCL to disconnect water and power connections of 11 classes.
“We had given 10 days to these institutes to comply with fire safety norms but they did nothing and did not even reply to our notice. Therefore, we filed police complaints against six centres under Section 36 of Maharashtra Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act, 2006 as we cannot take chance with safety of students,” said Uchake.
The mandated fire safety systems include sprinklers, setback area in the building, staircases for emergency evacuation and adequate parking facility, said another officer. Official said most coaching centres lacked one or more of these facilities.
Commissioner of police Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay told TOI he would ask police stations concerned to check the legal angles of the complaint filed by fire station officers. Chief executive officer of Sneha Coaching Classes Shyam Shendre said the institute had initiated work to install firefighting systems in all its branches.
Simultaneously, Sharda Classes in Pratap Nagar too has issued work order to install firefighting systems. Narayan Sharma of Sharda Classes claimed they have already installed fire extinguishers for primary fire protection. Abhi Bansal of Resonance claimed that they too had begun firefighting compliance work.