2017 forgotten, city hits reverse gear on fire safety

Ludhiana: When Ludhiana witnessed its biggest fire tragedy in November 2017 that left 16 people dead, including nine firefighters, it was assumed that the city will take the incident to heart and go for corrective measures with immediate effect. But the situation has only gone from bad to worse.
Despite frequent fire incidents, mostly in industrial units, negligible number of fire NOCs have been obtained from the fire wing of the Ludhiana municipal corporation since 2018. In a city where industrial units are in every nook and corner, NOC applications did not cross 2,000 mark even once in the past five years, data has revealed.

According to MC records, there are 4.25 lakh total properties in the city, out of which around 1 lakh consumers pay property tax for industrial and commercial units.
Since 2018, the government had started issuing fire NOC online to facilitate residents. Before 2020, the fire NOC was provided free of cost but even then, people were least bothered to apply for the same. From July 2020, charges were fixed under various categories for NOC and there was a provision of 10% increase in charges. At present, applicants have to pay a minimum charge of Rs 5,000 and for renewal 50% of charges are applicable.
In 2018, the fire wing received 1,895 NOC applications (highest in the past five years). The officials cited two years of Covid for lesser NOC applications, but the number did not see much of difference this year too.
The officials said unless there is a sealing drive against such violators, there will be no change in the scenario.
One of the fire officials claimed that only 2% industrial units come forward to get fire NOCs while units operating from houses in areas, including Sunder Nagar, Madhopuri, don’t bother about NOCs. He said there are some who do not come for NOC, but make partial arrangements for fire safety, but those are insufficient to tackle fires.
MC secretary Neeraj Jain said, “We tried our level best to convince people to get NOCs, but they are least bothered about their safety. There is a need for some stringent actions against the violators.”