Textiles and dress material stacked outside one of the ill-fated shops engulfed by Tuesday’s inferno at the New market. Captured by : Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
Tuesday’s inferno that engulfed Margao Municipal-owned New Market has thrown up a host of questions for the Fire Services, the Margao Municipal City Fathers, babus and the politicians controlling the Civic body to answer “ did the Fire services conducted any fire audit of the Municipal-owned New market and Gandhi market in recent times and whether the recommendations, if any, were all confined to the dusty record books of the Civic body?
These and other questions have come to the fore a day after the raging fire not only destroyed property worth lakhs of rupees, but the fire threatened to reduce the entire market to ashes before the fire brigade contained the fire from spreading to the hundreds of shops and stalls in the mega market.
Pose the question to the Fire official and do not be surprised to hear the fire men saying that the Margao fire brigade must have made fire preventive recommendations umpteen number of times in recent years. That’s not all. A senior fire officer further pointed out that since the fire hydrants have been put in place by the Margao Municipality, it is for the City Fathers and the Politicians to answer why the fire hydrants were never commissioned over the years.
“If you take a glance at the fire department’s file, you will come to know the correspondence made by the Fire department to the MMC to put the fire preventive measures in place,” remarked a fire official.
Given that the New Market and the Gandhi markets are congested with a host of traders and vendors doing business in these mega markets, questions are asked as to why the fire preventive measures have been thrown to the winds by the Municipality.
“It is purely for the Margao Municipality to implement the fire safety guidelines. If the MMC has not implemented the guidelines, the fault lies in the doorsteps of the Civic body,” the fire official added.
MMC Officials seemed to have no answers to these questions over the fire audit and the failure to implement the basic recommendations including commissioning the fire hydrants, putting an overhead water tank in place and clearing the roads leading to the market free from vehicles.
“Since the Margao MLA Digambar Kamat has instructed us to call a meeting of the officials of various departments, we will raise these issues at the meeting for action and solution,” informed a MMC official.
