Soon, MC to charge for firefighting op

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 22

Soon, commercial, institutional and industrial property owners without fire safety certificate will have to pay for fire service availed by them.

The MC has readied a proposal to recover the expenditure on controlling fire from the owners, who failed to obtain fire safety certificate from the Fire Department.

Besides, the MC has also proposed to double the charges for deployment of fire tender at the private functions. It has been proposed to increase the charges from Rs 500 per hour to Rs 1,000 per hour.

Anil Kumar Garg, Chief Fire Officer, confirmed that the agenda in this regard would be placed in the MC General House meeting to be held next week. He said despite issuing warnings and notices, a large number of commercial establishment owners have failed to obtain fire safety certificate.

The MC spends huge amount on firefighting operations. Besides human resources, fire tenders are also pressed into service in case of fire incidents. The MC spends huge amount on the operations. Therefore, it has been proposed that the amount spent on firefighting operation should be recovered from the defaulters.

Those who have valid fire safety certificate will not have to pay the charges.

Under the MC proposal, Rs 8,000 will be charged for the first four hours of the use of hydraulic platform. The charges will be increased to Rs 12,000 for four to eight hours and Rs 16,000 beyond eight hours. A levy of Rs 5,000 will be charged for the first four hours of employing water tender, water bowser and multipurpose tender. Rs 10,000 will be charged for four to eight hours and Rs 15,000 for using service beyond eight hours.

Similarly, the charges for motorcycle with AFT kit have also been fixed. It will be Rs 3,000 for the first four hours, Rs 5,000 for the next four hours and Rs 8,000 beyond eight hours.

The MC will also levy GST of 18 per cent on the charges.