Curation Team
CHANDIGARH: In a sweeping reform aimed at enhancing fire safety across the city, the Chandigarh municipal corporation is set to empanel certified third-party agencies to conduct fire safety audits for over 25,000 commercial and institutional buildings, including schools, hospitals, offices, factories, malls and high-rises.
The move comes amid growing concerns over the installation of substandard firefighting equipment and lack of preparedness among building occupants. Currently, there is no regulation over who supplies or installs fire safety systems, often leading to poor-quality setups that fail during emergencies.
These empaneled certified agencies will perform periodic audits of the firefighting equipment and check the state of preparedness of the occupants.
“At present, there is no control over the suppliers, as anyone can supply the firefighting equipment to builders or occupiers of the building. This has resulted in the supply and installation of poor-quality firefighting equipment, as the applicants generally prefer a lower price rather than the quality of equipment. By the time the firefighting team from the nearest fire station arrives, the fire engulfs a large portion of the premises. Given such a situation, there is a need to protect lives and safeguard property by suitably regulating the suppliers/installers of the firefighting equipment,” MC officials, on the condition of anonymity, said.
Officials said, “Creating a panel of certified agencies will also ensure that building owners/occupants are well trained to start the initial response to the fire. The certified agency will also ensure that the installed equipment is always in good working condition by performing periodic fire audits.”
While planning to introduce this new initiative, the civic body authority feels that the regulation of the installers of the firefighting equipment is expected to lead to the installation of quality firefighting equipment as approved by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) in the premises of the builders seeking a fire safety certificate (FSC).
As per the plan, the empaneled certified agencies will also perform periodic audits of the firefighting equipment and check the state of preparedness of the occupants. This, in turn, is expected to limit the spread of flames in all directions of the building. “The agencies that are thus empaneled as per the empanelment process will be called certified agencies for the purpose of installation of firefighting equipment and for performing fire safety audits,” an official said.
