Fire & Emergency dept looks to cut down application processing time to grant fire licence

Kolkata: In a significant stride towards Ease of Doing Business, the state Fire & Emergency Services department is trying to reduce the application processing time for granting fire licence, from 60 days at present to around 50 days or below.

Jagmohan, Director General of the state Fire & Emergency Services department, while addressing a National Workshop on National Building Code (NBC) of India 2016: Fire & Life Safety, said that the department and the industry need to be in sync in terms of application and permission for the plan to fructify.

The workshop was jointly organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) in the city on Friday.

"Public awareness should be raised about the fire safety in buildings and fire safety departments across the country should make capacity building their top priority," Jagmohan said, adding that the industry has offered full support in the implementation of NBC 2016 in construction activities.

Tapas Mukherjee, Engineer-in-Chief & Ex-Officio Secretary of the state Public Works Department (PWD), informed that the PWD has established a dedicated fire safety cell and on the basis of recommendation of NBC 2016, the department's architects and engineers are regularly examining the plans and making necessary modifications.

D K Shami, Fire Adviser, Directorate General Fire Services, Union Civil Defence & Home Guards, mentioned in his speech that building fires can be prevented by proper implementation of NBC 2016. In this regard, he stressed upon the collective responsibility of the community. He discussed the issues relating to the problem of parking facilities, relaxation of building heights etc. Shami also mentioned that some new recommendations are being forwarded for updating the present code.

"It is important that all states of the country uniformly implement NBC 2016," he maintained.