No lessons learnt by MC

Ramkrishan Upadhyay   

Tribune News Service   

Chandigarh, February 19

The Municipal Corporation has failed to learn lessons from its past experience  in the mobile market in Sector  22   where fire incidents have become a norm.  At least four fire incidents  have been reported  from the  market in the past three  years.

Encroachments in corridors  and shops in the basement  pose a serious threat of fire in the market. A majority of the  shops  lack the firefighting equipment    despite the fact that inflammable material is stored there. The Fire Department had earlier  issued instructions to shopkeepers to install fire safety equipment and fix loose wiring in shops, but nothing was done. Congested parking is also a major problem in the  market. Fire tenders had to wait  for  10 to 15 minutes today as employees and shopkeepers  took  their time to make way for the fire tenders  to reach the spot. ML  Sharma, Fire Station Officer, said the department  would soon conduct a survey  of the market  and  action would be initiated against shopkeepers   found  violating the  rules.

On April 10, 2009, four persons died of suffocation in a devastating fire that engulfed two floors of a showroom in Sector 22. In an another incident  on November 3, 2012, machinery used for video mixing and processing photographs was destroyed in a fire that broke out in eight shops-cum-cabins located on the first floor of an SCO in  the same market. A handloom showroom, located on the top floor of a building, was gutted in a fire  in 2013. A fire incident had occurred   on August 27,  2017,    in the  market after a meter got burnt due to a short-circuit.