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HYDERABAD: After the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s (GHMC) enforcement vigilance and disaster management (EVDM) wing made it mandatory for all commercial establishments to acquire fire mitigation certificates last month, a lack of awareness about the new rule has resulted in a poor response from owners.
The move to introduce fire mitigation certificates comes in the backdrop of a slew of fire mishaps, especially the Swapnalok Complex and Deccan Knitwear which claimed around nine lives this year. Also, due to the lack of a proper fire safety policy for buildings that are less than 15 metres in height.
Recently, EVDM in its official reply to a question raised by Bagh Amberpet corporator opined that the probable root cause for the series of fire accidents could be due to the existence of ‘red category buildings’ in the busy residential localities, slackness of owners in observing fire mitigation measures, outdated electrical installations, violation of occupancy norms and misusing of cellars for commercial purposes and malfunction of fire safety systems.
EVDM created a website firesafety(dot)ghmc(dot)gov(dot)in for citizens to apply for fire safety mitigation certificates.
To acquire these certificates, establishment must have fire safety installations prescribed in the National Building Code, 2016.
Buildings with a minimum height of nine metres or above and a floor area of more than 500 square metres and also for buildings of ‘incidental assembly’ like function halls having more than 300 square metres in height must be provided with an external staircase with a width of 1.5 metres.
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