BHUBANESWAR: In a massive drive, Fire Services personnel made simultaneous inspection in various hotels, malls and shops in the city and sealed two underground venues of a hotel due to lack of adequate fire safety measures on Monday.The staircases leading to the two halls were found to be curvy and the wooden panels used were highly combustible.
“Besides, BDA regulations do not permit conduct of marriages or any social gathering in the basement of a building,” Director General, Fire Services BK Sharma told The Express about the two underground venues which were sealed off.Since it is the marriage season, the officials of the hotel would have continued to hold the functions which is whyit was decided to seal the halls under the provisions of Odisha Fire Prevention and Fire Safety Rules, Sharma said, adding that the basements can only be used as parking lots, store rooms or libraries.
About 13 teams led by a senior officer each carried out the inspection in 26 hotels including Hotel Crown at Nayapalli, Hotel Swosti Grand at Station Square, The New Marrion in front of Ram Mandir, Hotel Fortune at Kalpana Square, Hotel Suryansh at Chandrasekharpur, Empires Hotel at Saheed Nagar, The Presidency hotel at Nayapalli and Hotel Seetal under Saheed Nagar police limits.
The fire personnel also conducted inspection in jewellery stores Lalchand Jewellers at Station Square, Kalyan Jewellers at Vani Vihar, Khimji Jewellers at Rupali Square. Simultaneous inspection was carried out in the malls and garment stores.
During the inspection, the teams found fire buckets were being used as dustbins in some establishments, exit gates had been blocked, while electrical insulation system went missing.Most of the shops used highly combustible and inflammable materials like wood panel and silk garments in the store rooms. Non-functional fire extinguishers, missing smoke detector and untrained staff were detected in most establishments which came under the inspection.