Gujarat: ‘Over 5,000 hospitals, schools lack fire NOC’

AHMEDABAD: There are more than 5,000 buildings housing hospitals and schools which do not have fire no-objection certificates in 156 municipalities across Gujarat despite efforts on part of the authorities in last six months to ensure that fire safety norms are followed.

There are 1,393 hospitals including 377 Covid-19 hospitals which were found without having fire NOC, and 2,883 schools that are lacking the certificates. These details were placed before the Gujarat high court on Monday by regional commissioners from six fire regions covering 156 municipalities.
The details furnished by the authorities also revealed that besides 5,138 hospital and school buildings without fire NOC, there are as many as 9,187 structures in these towns which do not possess valid Building Use permission. Among them, there are 2,392 hospitals, 2,944 schools and 3,851 industrial units.
The high court had sought details of compliance of the Fire Safety Act in response to a PIL filed by petitioner-advocate Amit Panchal who has demanded proper implementation of the law after eight Covid-19 patients were killed in a fire incident in Shrey Hospital in August 2020.
The authorities have informed the HC that all owners and office-bearers of buildings that are required to obtained fire NOC were given notice by issuing public advertisements after the HC orders and then issued notices individually when they did not comply with public notice. However, they also clarified that efforts of issuing notices are only with intention to seek implementation of the fire safety norms, “but without taking any coercive actions so as to avoid any harassment to the public at large, more particularly in view of the present prevailing unprecedented and precarious situation”.
The state government has submitted that 100 fire officers have been trained and deployed to assist the buildings to meet minimum requirements of fire prevention and to conduct awareness programmes. There are 300 more fire officers who are being trained at present for this task.
The government has also said that when it was learnt that hospitals, which were converted into designated Covid hospitals overnight, lacked fire NOCs, instructions were issued to all fire authorities to undertake inspection to take certain proactive measures to ensure fire safety. Training of on-duty staff and stand-by fire crew members has borne positive results, as there were nine incidents of fire in Covid hospitals in May, but they resulted in minor damage to properties with no loss of life.
The HC is likely to take up hearing on this issue on Tuesday.