AHMEDABAD: A chief fire officer post requires a diploma or degree in fire engineering and 15 years experience as deputy CFO. Gujarat, which reels under the recent fire tragedies in Covid-19 hospitals, seems to be struggling in getting people with the right qualifications for the job. In fact, in Bhavnagar city, a senior veterinary officer of the civic body has been given the additional charge of the chief fire officer (CFO) since October, 2019.
The curious case of Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation’s CFO cropped up in a meeting held last week at the urban development department with regards to recruiting fire officers to fill vacancies across municipal corporations and municipalities following a Gujarat high court direction.
The UDD officials were more surprised when the BMC representative submitted that Bhavnagar municipal corporation has not seen a qualified full-time CFO since 2006. “The charge of the CFO has gone to the garden department, audit department and the engineering department. Now, veterinary officer M M Hirpara is in charge of CFO we were told,” said a senior urban development department official.
Bhavnagar municipal commissioner MA Gandhi explains, “BMC did not have recruitment rules for CFOs until 2015. These rules were framed following a HC direction. Even under the existing rules, there is no provision for direct recruitment of CFOs but it is still promotion based. Currently, there are no competent officers who could be promoted to this post as per rules.”
Bhavnagar needs 180 firemen
Bhavnagar city today has a population of close to 6 lakh and requires 180 firemen to run the show, but the BMC has just 35 firemen. Its senior most officer is a station officer. Also BMC provides additional fire force to nearby hazardous zones like the Alang Ship breaking yard. There are three GIDC industrial clusters like-Vartej, Chitra and Vithalwadi. Besides these there is a GEB power plant within 10 km of the city, an IOC-Indane bottling plant on Budhel road which is within 14 km of the city.
“We analyzed how even the four nagarpalikas in Bhavnagar district which have just one mini fire tender each employ sanitation workers to operate fire tenders. These nagarpalikas too are dependent on BMC for help,” adds the senior urban development department official.