Fire department marks land beside Ganga for setting up new station

Kolkata: The state Fire department has already indentified a stretch of land beside river Ganga for setting up a new fire station at Burrabazar. The station will have the infrastructure of a pipeline to procure water directly from the river and use it for firefighting in the area.

It may be mentioned that availability of water source has been a major concern for firefighters in the central business district in Kolkata.

The area that the civic body has identified adjacent to Ganga, is owned by Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT).

"Mayor Firhad Hakim held a meeting with KoPT chairman Vinit Kumar and other senior officials at KMC today (Friday) and urged him to allocate the land for the fire station," a senior KMC official present in the meeting said.

Sources in KoPT said that they will soon visit the site selected by KMC and take a decision in this regard. The KMC is also going for a complete overhaul of drainage infrastructure in the Port area.

"They have decided to rope in a consultant for revamping the drainage infrastructure. We have told them that we will also be providing monetary assistance for the drainage project. The Kolkata Port will benefit significantly from better drainage facilities," a senior KoPT official said.

Mayor Firhad Hakim told reporters that a number of pending issues related to both KMC and KoPT were discussed in the meeting.

"There are problems in connection with a vat located beside the Port office. A joint inspection will be conducted and the issue will be sorted out in a week's time," the Mayor added.

A committee was formed with the chief manager (assessment) on behalf of KMC and the head of accounts of KoPT, to solve the issues of pending tax between the two.

"The committee will submit a report in two months, stating the pending tax on our part and vice-versa, so that the matter is sorted out quickly," a senior KMC official said.