Fire Incidents: Charring dreams of resilient Indian Cities

Fire is one of the five basic elements of Earth, which give birth to all life on the planet. On the other hand, in its disastrous form, it can engulf buildings and cause loss of life and valuable infrastructure. As per the data of Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India released by the National Crime Record Bureau, from 2016 to 2020, fire related accidents have killed 35 people every day. In order to prevent this, the Government of India came up with the National Building Code of India (NBCI), which was amended and revised nine times between 1970 and 2015.

The NBCI was revised a number of times due to continuous change in building patterns, new and innovative construction materials and technologies, greater need for preserving environment and planned management, etc. In lieu of this, a comprehensive revision of the Code was done in 2016, under the aegis of National building Code Sectional Committee, involving around 1000 experts. In Part 4 of the Code, fire and life safety procedures have also been revised as per the requirements of modern complex buildings.

Recommendatory Policy

The NBCI is a recommendatory document issued by the Bureau of Indian Standards, and it is up to the state governments to decide the scale of implementation. Various experts have time and again underlined the importance of making NBCI, a compulsory policy for states in order to ensure its compliance. One of the reasons for patchy implementation of the policy could be that the NBCI is an extensive and complex document with multiple chapters and provisions for buildings categorised under Residential, Institutional, Educational, Assembly, Mercantile, Business and Industrial, Storage, and Hazardous.
Fire Services is mentioned under the 12th Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which means it comes under the ambit of local bodies. Local bodies ensure the compliance of state bye laws and fire safety in buildings via issuance of a NOC (Non-Objection Certificate), which can be obtained only after proper inspection of building by the Fire Department. However, due to the absence of strict supervision of these NOCs by local bodies, we often hear about unfortunate fire incidents in cities.

Hospitals at centre of issue

A hospital is a sensitive place with patients who are often unable to move from their beds, and when fire breaks out in hospitals it becomes the death bed of various innocent lives. As per the media reports compiled by Scroll, between 2020 and 2022, almost 129 people in 29 incidents were killed due to fire accidents in hospitals. Shockingly, four of these 29 incidents happened in government facilities, such as the one which erupted in the COVID-19 ward of Ahmednagar civil hospital which engulfed more than
12 people. The COVID-19 pandemic (especially second wave) already put immense pressure on health infrastructure of Indian cities, and repeated incidents of fire in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and COVID-19 facilities exacerbated the situation. The Supreme Court of India had to intervene in this issue, when it directed the hospitals to acquire the NOC from the respective fire departments within four weeks. Audit probes held after this brought up some shocking revelations. For instance, more than 1300 hospitals (156 municipalities) in Gujarat did not have NOCs from the Fire
Department, which included 377 COVID-19 facilities.
The aforementioned details furnished by Regional Commissioners of six fire regions also found that more than 2800 schools in the area lack any NOC from the Fire Department. The condition is more or less similar in various parts of the country. In Chandigarh, which is celebrated as one of the most planned cities of India, just 59 schools out of the total 200 audited by the Fire Department were found with proper NOCs.

What can be done?

In order to understand more about the provisions of fire safety in buildings, Team Urban Update talked to Santokh Singh, former Deputy Chief Fire Officer (East and South), Delhi. He informed that the applications for NOCs come via proper government channels and the Department does not deal directly with owners or builders. Owners are summoned only when there is an application for renewal of NOC. The renewal is only done after proper audit of building by the Fire Department. He added, “Most of the buildings which are not in compliance with the norms of Fire Department or do not possess any NOC are unauthorised or are not under the purview of Delhi Fire Services.”
Even after 50 years of the formulation of NBCI by the Government of India, in 2020, the country lost more than 9000 lives due to fire accidents. The local bodies and the administration have to be vigilant in implementation of fire safety and other building guidelines. The NOCs issued by the Fire Departments should ensure compulsory compliance with the norms of revised NBCI as well as state bye laws. Singh said, “In Delhi, the NOCs have the clause where the applicant has to adhere to the guidelines of NBCI and Delhi Building bye laws. In case they don’t have any specific requirement, the Department gives recommendations to the applicant so as to plug any loophole.” He added that the Fire Department acts upon the complaints made to it by people or if there is any fire related incident. It is also authorised to take suo moto action in case of non-compliance with the norms. In case of any discrepancy, the Department is authorised to seal the building after giving 90 days time to the violator.
Public awareness is also necessary to save as many lives as possible in case of any mis happening around. The safety measures should be made public and documented in order to ensure compliance with these norms. General Fire safety guidelines and techniques for mass awareness such as Cracker Fire Safety, School Fire Safety, and use of Fire Extinguishers are mentioned on the website of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.

Way Forward

Some of the recent incidents of fire mishap in Delhi, which took a heavy toll on human lives, have once again brought the debate of fire safety procedures to the forefront. As per the Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India report of NCRB, the capital has the greatest number of fire accidents (128) among UTs in 2020, which is more than some of the bigger states such as Himachal Pradesh, and Punjab. The central government has revised the NBCI various times to make it synonymous with the changing trends in urban infrastructure, but the policy has no use if the local bodies do not ensure its compliance. People also have to realise the importance of fire safety, and have to strictly adhere to fire
safety standards.