AMC to initiate action against hospitals failing to obtain fire NoCs in district

Aurangabad, Jan 11:

The massive fire accident that took the lives of ten newborn babies in Bhandara on Saturday has prompted the Fire Brigade section of Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to swung into action. The section concerned will soon be performing a fire audit of each hospital in the district (including city limit).

The head of Fire Brigade section R K Sure said, " We have written a letter to the AMC health section, district civil surgeon and the Zilla Parishad's health section to send a list of permitted hospitals in their jurisdictions. As soon as the list is received, we will be performing the fire audit of each hospital."

Due to short circuit, a fire broke out in the Special Newborn Care Unit of the district hospital in Bhandara, and ten newborn babies lost their lives in the wee hours on Saturday. Taking cognizance of the incident, the state government had ordered the administration to perform structural, electrical and fire audit of all children's hospitals in the state. Accordingly, the AMC administrator A K Pandey alerted the fire brigade section and told the officials to undertake a drive to check fire fighting system in all the hospitals of the district (including the city) and accordingly issue a no-objection certificate to them. Hence the fire brigade section sent a letter to above three authorities and sought a list of sanctioned hospitals in their jurisdictions.

" We will serve notice to each hospital after receiving the list. The hospitals will be directed to install fire fighting system, and then the fire officials will conduct the fire audit," said Sure.

It is learnt that there are 571 hospitals in the city. It includes 526 private hospitals and 45 children's hospitals which are permitted by the AMC's health section. Of the total approved hospitals, 146 hospitals had obtained NOC during the last year. The remaining 425 hospitals failed to submit the required documents relating to the fire fighting system to the section. The AMC serves notices to them stating to submit the documents and obtained NoC after the audit, but only 25 per cent of hospitals responded to the notice. The remaining establishments paid no heed. The scenario of hospitals in the district (out of city limits) also fail to obtain fire NOC, it is learnt.