PANAJI
When a devastating fire tore through a Delhi hotel on Wednesday, claiming 21 lives, the smoke seemed to drift all the way to Goa. For many here, the images of charred remains in Malviya Nagar were a haunting echo of Goa’s own deadliest nightlife disaster and a bitter reminder of promises yet unkept.
Six months have passed since the fire at Arpora’s Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub that killed 25 people, including tourists and Nepali staff. In the immediate wake of that December tragedy, there were criminal charges, suspensions of senior bureaucrats, high-profile arrests, and the sealing of 22 clubs found to be operating in blatant defiance of fire safety codes and licensing permissions.
Today, however, the magisterial inquiry ordered into the disaster remains shielded from the public eye.
Sources told The Goan that every one of the 22 shuttered establishments was quietly de-sealed and allowed to operate. Both orders “ sealing and de-sealing were made by the district administration.
State authorities have provided no public disclosure regarding whether these venues rectified the violations, such as the lack of a mandatory Fire No Objection Certificate (NOC) that led to their closure in the first place.
While sources indicate that roughly 90-100 Fire NOCs have been issued over the last eight months, a significant number of high-occupancy venues continue to operate without them.
The heart of the crisis lies in a legislative vacuum. The Directorate of Fire & Emergency Services (DFES), the very agency tasked with preventing such tragedies, lacks the statutory authority to actually stop them.
Under current law, the DFES cannot seal unsafe premises or penalize owners who ignore fire safety mandates. Senior fire officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, described a system of "hollow enforcement."
“We can declare a structure unsafe and issue notices, but we have no power to act against negligence,” one senior officer said, adding, “Compliance is often only partial. We cannot take stringent action unless the rules are amended to give us more teeth.”
The missing report
The silence surrounding the official inquiry has only deepened local skepticism. While the full report remains under wraps, leaked extracts revealed a scathing critique of the state’s oversight.
The inquiry committee reportedly questioned how a massive entertainment venue could operate for decades on a contiguous property without ever attracting the scrutiny of the departments responsible for public safety.
