Rajpura Fire Dept faces staff crunch

Satinder Pal Singh

Rajpura, April 23

Lack of sufficient staff in the Fire Department here is taking a toll on the existing infrastructure as employees claim they are being forced to work overtime and without leaves.

With a severe staff crunch, the department is unlikely to be able to do much in case of a major fire in Rajpura and nearby villages where a large number of rural population resides.

The Fire Department has finally admitted that owing to shortage of drivers, the department had to face various difficulties in tackling major fire incidents.

Sources in the department said they had already written to the higher authorities demanding more drivers.

At present, there are only three drivers to take care of the entire Rajpura town. As per the sources, currently, a majority of the employees of the department are working up to 12 hours daily instead of eight hours due to the staff crunch. It had become difficult to take fire tenders to spots in the absence of adequate number of drivers.

An official said fire incidents increase manifold during summers. Calls for the service vary from 20 a day to five a day.

“On an average, there are around eight or nine calls regarding fire everyday from the town or nearby areas. It becomes difficult to provide the service with inadequate number of drivers. We have demanded adequate staff for the department, but to no avail,” the official said.

Manjit Singh, Fire Officer, Dera Bassi, and in-charge, Rajpura fire station, acknowledged the fact that the department was facing shortage of drivers. However, he maintained that its functioning had not been hampered by the crunch.

“We are carrying out emergency services aptly and that is visible by our work,” he said. The officer said the department had been waiting to get its 1984-made fire tender replaced by the administration. He said the fire tender met with an accident long time ago and the maintenance of the decades old tender was expensive.

He said it was difficult to use the fire tender as its spare parts were not available in the market and it had outlived its utility.

The fire official said they had written to the higher-ups about the issue but nothing concrete had been done in this regard. At present, the Rajpura fire station has three fire tenders.