VIJAYAWADA: Small clinics with bed facility in Vijayawada are expressing difficulty in adhering to existing fire safety norms and have instead proposed the State government to waive the mandatory no objection certificate (NOC) for the same.
According to fire safety officials, hardly less than 50 per cent of hospitals in the city follow fire safety norms. In Vijayawada, medical institutions below 15 metre come under the purview of Fire Prevention Wing (FPW), Vijayawada Municipal Corporation and those that stand above 15 metre (high rises) come under Director General of Fire Services (DGFS)’s purview, which issues the NOC.
“We are not against implementing fire safety norms, but a five-bed hospital or a nursing home can’t follow fire safety norms followed by a corporate hospital. It is tough for them to install fire sprinklers, maintain a dedicated power supply and water tanks for safety measures.
It costs around `25 lakh to install these facilities. So, we are confining ourselves to simple equipment such as carbon dioxide cylinders. We have forwarded the proposal long ago to the State government. The same is yet to be discussed by the cabinet sub-committee,” Dr Gangadhar, former president of IMA, State Chapter, said.
All hospitals across the State have to get their fire safety licences renewed every year and it is mandatory for the their managements to obtain a NOC from the Fire Services department.
Unless the managements install the safety measures, the department would not issue the certificate.
Krishna District Fire Officer (DFO) D Niranjan Reddy said, “The hospitals with height of less than six metre and plot area of less than 500 square metre do not come under purview of AP Fire Service Act, 1999 and need not obtain an NoC.
However, they must install fire safety measures as per NBC, 2016 and relevant IS codes.”