Bhubaneswar: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has launched a fire safety awareness drive among different categories of stakeholders to avoid fire mishaps in the city and upgrade fire safety measures in residential and commercial buildings, hospitals, and high rises.
The awareness drive-cum sensitisation workshop began on October 1 and will continue till November 29.
Slums, residential welfare associations in different wards, society representatives of high-rise residential complexes, owners of industrial units, members of private and government health institutions, colleges, universities, malls, representatives of puja committees, markets, and government and private offices will be involved in a phased manner to discuss fire safety compliance according to Odisha Development Authorities (Planning and Building Standards) Rules, 2020.
The city project coordinator of Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) Ajay Mohanty said that the basic purpose of the awareness workshop is to educate the different stakeholders regarding safety requirements and help them apply for fire safety compliance.
“We are involving the councillors because they can motivate people easily so as to make them install fire safety equipment and file compliance with the fire department. We are involving the ward officers as they stay in touch with residents routinely. We have planned to distribute self-declaration forms regarding fire safety compliances for residents to fill up. The filled forms which will contain some basic queries will be collected through ward officers. The BMC will send them to the fire department so that they can issue necessary instructions to building owners to upgrade safety norms accordingly,” Mohanty was quoted as saying by TOI.
