CHENNAI: The Fire and Rescue Services department was taking effective steps to reduce the response time in the event of a fire or rescue situation, Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi informed the Assembly on Wednesday.

"In Chennai city, the department has succeeded in restricting the response time to a period of 10 minutes or less and in the districts it is at present 20 minutes. It is our endeavour to reduce the response time even further," he said.

A separate communications wing and a control room with telephone numbers 101 and 102 are available to monitor the response time. Chennai and nearby areas are covered by the wireless communication system through which messages can be transmitted quickly to reduce the response time, he said.

Fire calls

A total of 17,442 fire calls were received during 2006 and a majority of them (16,950) were small fire calls. Of the remaining, 126 were serious fires (down from 151 in 2005) and 366 medium intensity fires.

The department managed to save 122 people. As many as 65 lives were lost and property worth Rs.27.74 crore was damaged completely.

The value of property saved was Rs.131.03 crore.

The department received 8,345 rescue calls in 2006 relating to emergencies such as road accidents, train accidents, incidents of falling into wells, inhalation of poisonous gases and building collapses. As many as 6,163 lives were saved.

Participating in the debate for demands for grants of the Home, Prohibition and Excise department, P.S.Vijayakumar (Congress) alleged that there were many instances where men were at the receiving end of foisted dowry harassment complaints. C.Gnanasekharan (Congress) wanted the Government to take firm action against any organisation taking up the cause of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. He wanted to know what steps the police had taken in bringing accused number one in the Rajiv Gandhi case — LTTE chief V.Prabhakaran — to justice.

Illicit liqour

T.Velmurugan (PMK) demanded that effective steps be taken to control brewing and consumption of illicit liquor in the State and also the spread of the banned lottery trade. He faulted the previous AIADMK Government for putting on compulsory wait civil servants.

Since they had to be paid wages during this period, it was wrong to keep them on compulsory wait.

He also wanted a steep increase in the salary of policemen so that instances of bribe taking came down.

C.Govindasamy (CPI-M) wanted the recruitment process to keep pace with the changing times.

He wanted the Government to provide training in courtesies for police personnel, especially when they deal with people who file complaints and also those who have been accused in such complaints.

Rajakannappan (DMK) said the number of cases of harassment of women had come down this year by about 25 per cent.

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