NEW DELHI: Those who are not residents of Delhi get astonished as they walk down the narrow streets of the national capital’s congested areas and encounter a small-scale industry.
People usually visualize a factory as a big building in an open space with a chimney on the top, but, the reality bites in Delhi, and one wonders why these are not on the radar of bulldozers.
The city is the epicentre of thousands of such factories which are ‘ticking time bombs’. When this newspaper compiled the data of major fire accidents in last few years, the factories being run without fire safety standards were found to be one of the major reasons.
Every year the Delhi Fire Service provides a Fire No Objection Certificate to around 50-70 factories, however, several still go unnoticed. A senior fire department official told this newspaper that they do not directly deal with the public to provide a NOC.
“We are not a licensing authority to do that. It is the duty of the building authority or the civic agency to refer the case to us before permitting or giving a license to a building or even a factory,” the official said.
Most of the buildings that are gutted in fire incidents lack the fire safety standards and most importantly a Fire NOC.
A Fire NOC certifies that a building has been deemed to comply with the fire prevention and fire safety requirements in accordance with Rule 33 of the Delhi Fire Service Rules.
The Alipur factory blaze which claimed lives of 11 labourers also had not taken No Objection Certificate from the Fire Department. “There were no Fire NOC and no fire safety arrangements at the place,” Delhi Fire Service Director Atul Garg said. The factory was gutted in the inferno and the police are trying to ascertain the exact cause of the fire.