Ggm sitting on ticking tinderbox
Gurugram: A large number of illicit factories operating in the illegal colonies and unregulated commercial activities in the residential area makes Gurugram unsafe in dealing with a major fire tragedy. In order to save costs and improve their profit margins most of the owners are setting up their industrial units in such colonies.
As their units are not legally registered, it provides the leeway for the owners to openly flout norms and thereby risk the lives of lakhs of labourers working in these units. Several mishaps that have occurred in Gurugram have been functioning from these illegal colonies. One such mishap was in a cracker factory near Kadipur in April this year, where two lives were lost and five people got injured. It is estimated that over 2,200 such units are operating in such colonies. What makes matters worse is the fact that most of these units are involved in the production of plastics, rubber, sponge, paper and similar items.
It is not only illegal colonies but large scale commercial activities that has picked up in the residential areas also leading to the flouting of safety norms. In addition to this, a large number of guesthouses that have come up in the areas of Nathupur, Sirhaul, Sikanderpur, Sukhrali are not registered as they do not meet the Harayana building codes and therefore do not have the fire safety clearances from the public agencies.
The demand of these guesthouses can be gauged from the fact that a guesthouse, that is doing well minimum, has five floors and one floor at least has 40 persons living in it. High number of tenants coming into the city is only resulting in more guesthouses being or more floors to be added to the existing structures.
Another challenge that confronts the public officials is how a large number of commercial structures are now coming up in the residential areas and thereby making it crowded and congested. These problems are most common in areas of Sadar, Khandsa road and Basai. The Sadar which is one of the oldest areas for Gurugram not only consist of shops but also has houses and certain industrial units located around its borders. Not only locals but even senior officials concede that narrow lanes around Sadar would make it difficult for the officials to prevent the fire tragedy if occurs.
On Tuesday a high-level meeting was convened by the District Commissioner Amit Khatri to make the city deal with fire tragedies. It was decided that campaign to make Sadar Bazar free of encroachment. Along with this, all concerned executive engineers have been asked take action against unauthorised factory and commercial activities in their respective areas.
