Safety first: Chief secretary orders steps to prevent fires

Gondal orders crackdown on spurious drugs

LAHORE: Chief Secretary Khizar Hayat Gondal ordered on Thursday that a plan be prepared to deal with the rising incidents of fire.

“Availability of fire-safety equipment and emergency exits must be ensured at all buildings,” the chief secretary said.

He ordered then Punjab Emergency Service (Rescue 1122) Director General Rizwan Naseer to launch a campaign to educate people about the steps they could take to prevent fires. He directed the home secretary and the Lahore DCO to make the Civil Defence Department more effective.

In several press releases issued earlier this year, Naseer had said that the increase in fire incidents was due to unplanned urbanisation and violations of fire and life safety codes by owners of commercial buildings.

He had called for establishing an effective fire prevention system where owners of high-rise buildings, warehouses and industries were made to comply with safety bylaws, including ensuring emergency exits, fire alarms, fire extinguishers, fire hydrants and sprinklers at their buildings.

Naseer had called for forming a Land Use and Building Control Authority. He said the absence of emergency exits and fire hydrants and encroachments around buildings, particularly those in the Walled City, made fire-fighting operations very difficult.

Naseer said the meeting presided over by the chief secretary did not discuss the implementation mechanisms for any of the measures recommended by him.

District Emergency Officer Ahmad Raza had informed the fire-safety commission, formed after a fire at LDA Plaza, that Rescue 1122 had identified more than 400 high-rise buildings in Lahore that did not have proper safety arrangements. He said owners of the buildings had been issued notices asking them to put in place emergency exits, fire alarms system, fire-hose cabinets and fire-hydrant systems.

After a fire broke out at an 11-storey building in Shah Alam Market late on Wednesday, it was learnt that there were no emergency exits or water sprinklers at the building.

Naseer said he would soon meet with Minister for Housing and Works Rana Tanveer and take up the issues.

The chief secretary also chaired a meeting to review progress on a crackdown on spurious drugs. He ordered the authorities to take action in this regard without any discrimination. He directed Health Secretary Jawad Rafique Malik to lodge FIRs against those involved in the illegal trade.

Adviser to Chief Minister on Health Khwaja Salman Rafique, MPA Khwaja Imran Nazir and Information Secretary Momin Agha attended the meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2015.