Vijayawada: Stress on fire safety rules to check accidents

Vijayawada: NTR district collector S Dilli Rao said that commercial complexes, shopping malls, hospitals, educational institutions, exhibitions, gaming zones and other high-rise buildings must follow the fire safety rules and warned that stern action will be taken for violation of fire safety rules.

Dilli Rao along with the joint collector P Sampath Kumar, VMC commissioner Swapnil Dinakar Pundkar conducted a video conference on Thursday with the officials of the revenue, police, municipal, fire services, R and B, Transco, Panchayat raj and other departments and discussed the steps to be taken to check fire accidents.

He said stern action will be taken for violation of fire safety rules in case of fire accidents. He underlined the need for capacity building to control the fire in case of mishaps and suggested the presence of trained staff.

He conducted the conference in view of mega fire accident that took place at Rajkot, Gujarat killing dozens of people and injuring many.

Collector instructed the fire services department to conduct regular checks at the hospitals, educational institutions on the fire safety measures taken by the management and submit a report.

He suggested the fire services department to conduct mock drills regularly and take measures that high-rise buildings must follow the fire safety rules and prevent mishaps.

He said public addressing systems, installation of alarms, arrangements of symbols and installation of fire controlling equipment is very important in high-rise buildings.

Fire services department are advised to keep vigil on the centralised AC buildings. He said trained staff is very important at the high-rise buildings to extinguish the fire.

District Fire Officer AV Sankara Rao, municipal commissioners, RDOs and other officials attended the video conference.