Make grills mandatory in high rises
A YOUNG boy’s accidental fall from the 20th floor window of his house in Mumbai last month, raises serious concerns over the absence of window grills in high-rise residential buildings in the country.
According to media reports, the tragedy occurred around 8 pm, when the 13-year-old boy was playing in his apartment in Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon East. If only the open-glass window had grills, it would have saved him from the tragic death.
This is not the first time that the absence of safety grills on windows has tragically cut short a young life. In July last year, a five-year-old boy from the Janta Housing Society in Byculla, Mumbai, died in similar circumstances. Here again, the boy was reportedly playing on a bed placed adjacent to the window of his apartment on the 11th floor when he lost balance and fell against the window. With no grill to protect him, he plunged all the way down to the ground.
Two months prior to that in May, a two-year-old boy fell off the window of his seventh floor apartment complex in Otteri, Chennai, while playing on a sofa placed near the window. In February 2022, a 12-year-old boy in Thiruvananthapuram met a similar fate. Here again, the windows in his apartment on the sixth floor were not secured with grills.
Traditionally, grills were installed on windows on ground and first floors, to secure homes from burglars. Since windows in high-rise buildings are not so easily accessible to intruders, such grills were dispensed with on higher floors. Aesthetics also played a part in doing away with grills. But even more important, to builders of large high-rise apartment complexes, it saved costs. Obviously, safety was not a consideration in these decisions and as a consequence many young lives have been lost.
Builders often blame parents for such accidental falls because of placing of beds and sofas close to the windows in high-rise apartments. But what they overlook is that firstly there is not much choice for placing furniture in small apartments. Secondly, even if every piece of furniture is kept away from the window, one cannot overlook the possibility of children pulling a chair or a table and climbing on them to look out of the window. In fact, that is how many accidents have happened.
So, it is absolutely essential to child-proof windows by installing grills. In fact, people who rent out or buy houses need to ensure that all the windows from the first floor onwards are secured with grills. It is always advisable to have vertical grills rather than horizontal ones which tempt children to climb on them. It is also important to ensure that the distance between two railings is not more than 10 cm or else a child may slip through it.
While on this topic, I must mention that in Mumbai, there is a demand for ‘removable’ grills in high rises, so as to provide easy access to fire fighters in case of a fire. I do not know how these removable grills work, but this needs to be considered. Or perhaps grill materials that are easy for firemen to break. I am also reading about grills made of stainless steel cables that are much thinner than the regular grills, so look better, but are strong enough to prevent an accidental fall from the window. And these can be cut easily by firemen in case of an emergency, it is said.
Given the imperative need to prevent accidental falls from windows and protect children, the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs should entrust the Bureau of Indian Standards, which has formulated the ‘National Building code of India’ with the job of recommending a suitable grill material for childproofing windows, keeping in mind the fire safety as well. Use of such a grill should be made mandatory for windows in all high-rise residential buildings.
