Mumbai Fire Brigade avoiding information on Fire Audit of buildings

At a time when, Mumbai is witnessing rising incidents of fires in buildings, the Mumbai Fire Brigade which is entrusted with the responsibility of carrying out fire audits of buildings and high rise towers, seems to be shirking their responsibility. To ascertain the status of fire audits progress, RTI Activist Anil Galgali had filed an RTI application with the department, which is trying to ignore giving a proper response to the query.

RTI Activist Anil Galgali had sought information from the Mumbai Fire Brigade, the total number of buildings, type of buildings, Ward wise data on buildings, Total number of buildings on which fire audits was done, and pending number of buildings for Fire Audit, within the Municipal limits of the MCGM on 1st January 2018. The Divisional Fire Officer, SD Sawant with intention to avoid providing complete information responded that, as per the Maharashtra Fire Prevention Life Safety Act 2006, it has become mandatory for the Owners, Occupier, or Housing Societies to get the fire audits conducted by the approved and licensed auditor of the MCGM and the report be submitting to the Fire Brigade or be uploaded on the website of the municipality corporation. But the Fire Brigade has no information as to how many reports have been submitted or uploaded on the website. The information was despatched in a very cavalier manner so as to delay the receipt of the response, which was received after 3 months of despatch. 

In Mumbai the Nominated officer under the Act have been authorised in the 34 Fire Stations to carry out inspection of the buildings in their areas and limits, then it is surprising that they have no information on the progress of Fire Audit of buildings in their respective areas questioned Galgali. Galgali has complained the the Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta about such delaying tactics adopted by the Fire Brigade. In case of any incidents of fires in buildings the the carelessness adopted by the Mumbai Fire Brigade is equally responsible as they are not serious in the most important task of enforcing and monitoring the Fire Audits. Also the names buildings and societies, not serious in getting themselves audited should be published on the website to shame and force them to act for benefits of the residents of the respective buildings stated Galgali.