At the time when the Fire Services Departments of several countries across the globe have achieved response times of less than ten minutes, the situation in India is still dismal with no one seems to be interested in achieving any goal in this direction as the issue has once again came to limelight in the case of fire incident at a hotel in Kashmir's world famous ski resort Gulmarg, when the video of locals combating inferno with snowballs went viral.
There is no doubt that LG Manoj Sinha, who is leading the affairs of the Union Territory, is one of the busiest individuals in the entire country. He is tasked with overseeing a region that requires improvement in nearly all fields and aspects. Therefore, expecting overnight results would be unjust. However, when it comes to ensuring a reduction in fire safety services response times, the issue is of immense importance. The head of the UT should assign this duty to officers with special calibre, as achieving this target can help save many precious lives and properties worth crores of rupees.
J&K conventionally has a poor record of fire fighting culture, and every year, the UT incurs devastating losses due to fire incidents. In the aforesaid case, where reportedly a big controversy has erupted with people alleging sluggish response by those manning the fire tenders in the area and the government is refuting the allegation by terming it baseless. Apart from this very case, the people managing the concerned department meant for fire safety cannot deny the fact that the response time of the fire tenders reaching the places engulfed in fires is not upto the mark and there is dire need to work on the same to improve this timing to save lives and property.
Every time such incidents take place the government gives an alibi that fire safety audits are pending and assures to conduct the same as fast as possible but after passing of time things settle down as they were earlier leaving a chance for another tragedy to happen.
The need of the time is to change this attitude and ensure that response time of fire tenders should be minimized with every property in J&K knowing the status of how long the fire brigade trucks will take to reach their place for dousing the fire.
This is of course a tedious job but under no circumstances the same could be considered as impossible therefore the stakeholders should start mulling on the matter and do the needful to make it possible that damages caused by the fire incidents could be minimized with no one losing his or her life in such cases.
