Schools pay little heed to safety drive

HYDERABAD: Legend goes that when Rome was burning its emperor Nero was playing the fiddle. When the Kumbakonam fire tragedy occurred, school authorities in the state may not have been as nonchalant, but since then they have done little to ward off another such disaster.
Months have passed but not a single institution in Andhra Pradesh has responded to the self-appraisal forms on fire safety.
The forms comprise a set of 50 questions on the structure of the building and the available fire safety measures. But educational institutions have just let dust accumulate on them instead of submitting them to the area station fire officer or fire service department, said fire services director general Alok Shrivastava.
The fire brigade''s safety drive in schools was launched on July 19 last year, following the Kumbakonam inferno which killed 95 children.
Fire safety drills were conducted in about 400 schools in twin cities and self-appraisal forms on fire safety sent to 40,000 educational institutions.
Initiated by the government of India, the director-general of civil defence directed the state educational secretary to make it mandatory for all the district educational officers (DEO) to submit the self-appraisal forms on fire safety to the fire service officers.
Though the circular was issued, the institutions are yet to respond, Shrivastava said.
Majority of the schools and colleges in the state run from rented buildings and they lack sufficient open spaces, needed for fire fighting, or a proper facility to store water for such emergencies.
Some schools do not even have a fire bucket with sand and water or a store of about 10,000 litres of water in the lane of the school, said a fire service official.
A fire service detector or sensor, worth Rs 2000, should also be installed in the school buildings, the official said.
Unless the school authorities cooperate, a fire mishap cannot be prevented or the damage minimised, Shrivastava said.