Rajkot and Delhi Fire: Owners flouted fire safety rules

Two tragic fire incidents last weekend – the game zone fire in Gujarat’s Rajkot and another at a children’s hospital in the national capital – which claimed many lives, including children and newborns have exposed the callous attitude of the owners towards ensuring basic safety measures.

In Rajkot, where the fire at a game zone killed as many as 33, including children, some of whom were below 12 years, did not have the necessary fire safety clearance from the municipal corporation. Allegedly, there was also some welding work going on when the fire broke out and had just one route for entry and exit. The owner, Yuvrajsinh Solanki and manager Nitin Jain have been arrested on charges of culpable homicide.

The Gujarat High Court took suo motu cognizance of the tragedy and asked the state government as well as the Rajkot, Surat and Ahmedabad municipalities to submit a report on the functioning of gaming centers in these cities.

Less than 12 hours after, the fire at a children’s hospital, New Born Baby Care in East Delhi, which claimed lives of at least 7 newborn babies was also found to have flouted basic fire safety norms having just one exit and no fire escape which put the lives of newborns at risk. The Delhi Police arrested the owner Dr Naveen Kichi, and Dr Akash who was on duty on the night when the mishap occurred. Investigation is underway into the cause of the fire.

The Gujarat government, two days after the incident, has ordered the suspension of five officials, including two police inspectors and civic staff, with immediate effect for negligence in connection with the Rajkot game zone fire.

While the victims’ family might get justice, there’s a larger issue here which needs to be addressed. The country has witnessed enough fire tragedies – from the Uphaar Cinema tragedy in Delhi in 1997 that claimed 59 lives to the Bengaluru residential complex blaze of 2010, the Kamala Mills inferno of 2017 and Kolkata’s AMRI hospital fire in 2011 to have learnt its lesson.

In most of these incidents, these establishments were found to have ignored fire safety compliance. In fact, many establishments and residential societies often avoid fire certification due to the elaborate and even corrupt processes.

In 2012, when a fire at a hospital which was 60 km from Nagpur killed 10 babies, a Maharashtra public health department audit of 484 hospitals was done in which it was found that more than 80% did not have a fire safety clearance.

Despite the frequency of such incidents, eight out of 10 Indians said their homes and workplaces were not compliant to fire safety norms, said a report by News18.

According to a survey conducted by social media platform LocalCircles, only 18% respondents said the fire safety equipment at their residential area undergoes annual inspection, it said

When it comes to workplaces, just 27 percent said the firefighting equipment is checked annually, the report added.

According to a data released by the National Crimes Bureau of India (NCRB), a total of 3,375 fire incidents were reported in the past two years in 2021 (1,808) and 2022 (1,567) due to electrical short circuits. Three hundred and thirty deaths were reported in commercial building fires in 2019 and 6,339 deaths were reported due to fire incidents in residential buildings across India.