MARGAO
The Shadow Council for Margao (SCM) has urged the South Goa District Collector to direct all the government and public offices to undertake a mandatory fire audit.
The SCM had in September 2018 highlighted the glaring fire threat to practically every government building in the city and had strongly expressed the urgent need for a fire audit of all government, public offices in the city.
SCM convenor Savio Coutinho stated that every government building, including the Margao Municipal Council building, is vulnerable to a serious fire threat resulting in a severe loss of property and important records in the various offices in the city.
In the absence of any fire-fighting equipment and basic fire-fighting training, in the event of any incident of fire, the entire office along with important records will not take time to get reduced into ashes, he added.
Coutinho said the Margao Municipal Council, which makes it mandatory for all commercial establishments to obtain NOC from the fire department, should realise that its own premises are also unsafe as far as fire-fighting capabilities are concerned. And considering the papers and files lying all over haphazardly, a fire incident could be devastating to the council building. Incidentally, the building has all highly flammable material, including the wooden flooring, he said.
"After we highlighted this issue, the Margao Municipal Council had resolved in one of its meetings in October 2019, to undertake a fire audit. Sadly, as usual, this resolution remained confined only to the files only", Coutinho lamented.
“We call upon the District Collector to make it mandatory for a fire audit of all government, public offices in the city. A fire audit shall not only spell out fire safety provisions and equipment but also provide periodic inspection and training to the staff on the immediate measures needed to control the fire from spreading”, he said, adding “We have seen and heard of fire incidents in several government/public offices wherein important documents and files were destroyed in a fire. As such, it would be prudent to take necessary measures to be well-equipped to tackle such incidents of fire”.
