Hospital fires

04 May Hospital fires

(GS PAPER-3, Infrastructure

Source- The Hindu)

 Context

Recent fires in Hospital at Gujarat,  a suburb of Mumbai and Mumbai near  Thane kid at least 37 people

 key points

• over the past year there have been deadly fires in hospital building including those meeting covid-19 patient
•  the national crime record Bureau said 330 people died in commercial building fires in 2019 while facilities for residential or dwelling buildings were much higher at 6329
• Electric faults are cited as the leading cause of fires but state governments are widely criticized for being lax  with building safety laws and for failing to equip building with modern technologies
•  hospitals ICUs are a great fire risk because they are oxygen confused and need to meet high standards

National Building Code of India

•  at the centre of all standard setting is the National Building Code of India Part 4 of the code deals with fire and life safety
•  the document provides specifications and guidelines for design and materials that reduce the threat of destructive fire
• under the code all existing and new buildings are classified by nature of use such as residential educational institution assembly e-business mercantile industrial storage and hazardous
• According to the union home ministry is directorate-general for fire services States have been asked to incorporate NBC into their local building by-laws making the recommendation a mandatory requirement
•  evidently fire safety rules exist in every state but the provisions of the code are ignored in practice and even mandatory certification do not reflect compliance

 way forward

•  in December last year the supreme court directed all states to carry out fire safety audits of dedicated covid-19 hospitals
•  it has become evident that States force lack the man power to inspect and ensure compliance the safety course including the NBC where it is mandatory

-Khyati Khare