Fire dept's reply to PSHRC under scrutiny

LUDHIANA: In a glaring example of how administrative authorities mislead statutory bodies, in a reply submitted to the Punjab State Human Right Commission (PSHRC) regarding a complaint against poor facilities in the fire department, the fire brigade officers have claimed that it is capable of controlling any sort of fire, even without proper infrastructure and manpower.
In a report published on October 12, TOI had highlighted about the ill-equipped fire brigade system in the city. Likewise, Rohit Sabharwal and Saurabh Gupta, the office bearers of Anti-corruption and Crime Investigation Cell, an NGO, had on the basis of the news item lodged a complaint with PSHRC after which the commission had sought a report from the deputy commissioner on December 12.
Consequently, in a reply filed to the commission on January 4, the DC had attached the report submitted by Kartar Singh, the assistant divisional fire officer (ADFO). The ADFO had clearly admitted that Ludhiana was a sensitive city with a large number of fire incidents taking place here, adding that the fire brigade was totally ill-equipped to deal with it.
He had said that the department had 28 fire tenders to cater to a city with more then 40 lakh people, adding that the department was facing acute shortage of manpower, due to which the staff was working in 12-hours shifts. He said that the MC had passed a resolution regarding recruitment of new staff and purchase of new machinery. But surprisingly, the officer had said that despite shortage of all these things, they are fully capable of controlling fire incidents, which has raised eyebrows.
Commenting on it, Sabharwal alleged that this was another example of how the administrative officers were misleading the statutory commission. He said that it had been widely reported in media that fire department faces a lot of trouble in dealing with fire incidents due to inadequate manpower and infrastructure, but this reply clearly showed that they had been misleading the commission. "We will lodge a complaint regarding the callous attitude of MC officers with the commission," he added.