BERHAMPUR: A year after inspection of high rises and malls in Silk City, most of the buildings continue to violate fire safety measures. In May 2018, eight teams of Odisha Fire Services department inspected 16 places in the city, including shopping malls, hospitals, hotels and apartments and found several buildings lacking in safety norms. Notices were issued to more than 50 establishments here and they were asked to upgrade fire safety measures and collect certificates, but except a handful of them, most of the buildings continue to violate the norms.
Meanwhile, more malls and multi-storey educational institutions came up in the city, but fire safety remains a concern. After the Surat tragedy, Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) woke up from its slumber and issued notices to most of the big establishments asking them to obtain fire safety certificate within a month or face stringent action.
However, it relaxed time up to three months for small establishments. The city has more than 100 multi-storey apartments, over 100 commercial buildings which house private nursing homes and shops. Most of them are equipped with fire extinguishers but lack trained staff to handle those.
Moreover, most of them are air-conditioned with single entry increasing the risk of fire.
Similarly, the city has numerous coaching centres which are running in narrow lanes while private institutions function from multi-storey buildings in crowded localities.
Assistant Fire Officer Sanatan Mohapatra said fire personnel have already taken up measures to apprise the building owners about fire safety measures and raids would be conducted any moment to initiate action against violators.