The Hindu : Kerala News : Fire Services left out in the cold

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Monday, Aug 02, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Fire Services left out in the cold

By T. Ramavarman

THRISSUR, AUG. 1. The Kerala Fire and Rescue Services (KFRS) continues to be left out in the cold despite some moves initiated by the Government on the fire-fighting front in the wake of the Kumbakonam tragedy.

Most of the measures initiated by the Government pertain to replacing thatched school sheds with tile-roofed ones and similar steps. There seems to be no effort on the part of the Government to streamline its official fire-fighting wing.

The KFRS is under severe shortage of resources in terms of equipment, facilities and manpower. But the Government is yet to frame the rules under the Kerala Fire Force Act to achieve the objectives enshrined in the 1962 Act.

According to the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, the draft proposals for the enactment of the Kerala Fire Prevention and Safety Act and Rules sent to the Government in November 2001 are still pending with it. The result: the penal provisions of the Act could not be implemented.

Funds underutilised

Interestingly, the CAG report points out that even as the KFRS is facing a severe resource crunch, loans received from the General Insurance Corporation (GIC) and assistance sanctioned by the Centre for it remain grossly underutilised. The report says that the State Government had obtained a loan of Rs.17.75 crores from the GIC during 1993-2002 to procure fire-fighting equipment and construction of fire stations. ``However, only Rs.1.86 crores was spent by the KFRS as on March 2003.''

Similarly, the Central Government had sanctioned Rs.6 crores to the KFRS as financial assistance for the period 1998-2003 as per the awards of the Tenth and Eleventh Finance Commissions for the construction of 17 fire stations. But the Public Works Department which was entrusted with the construction had utilised only Rs.3 crores till March 2003, the report says.

``The Fire Department has not built up a database of high-rise buildings in the State by interacting with the urban local bodies or the development authorities, leaving a good number of high-rise buildings uncovered under its licensing regime. Periodic inspections of high-rise buildings after the issue of the final no-objection certificate have not been conducted to ensure that the installations are intact and the buildings fully equipped to withstand fire incidents,'' the report says.

SFAC norms

According to the norms set by the Standing Fire Advisory Committee (SFAC), the State Government is expected to provide fire service cover to every place with a population of 50,000. But the State now has only 67 fire stations as against a requirement of 145, and the number of people served by each station varies from 2.7 lakhs to 7.9 lakhs. Similarly, the State has only 70 pumping units for 83 lakh population in the urban areas when the requirement is 166 units. As against a requirement of 145 water tenders, the department possesses only 137 tenders. As many as 19 of them are out of commission. Of the 179 vehicles in the 67 fire stations inspected by the CAG, 113 (63 per cent) vehicles are over 10 years old. There is only one snorkel (tall ladder mounted on a vehicle for fire-fighting in high-rise building) in operation in the whole State. The CAG finds that there is a shortfall of 26 per cent in operational staff in the 67 fire stations.

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