Gurgaon
Information about Gurgaon city and places around Gurgaon India and NCR.

Gurgaon, the city of huge commercial offices, malls, and multiplexes, is quite prone to fire outbreaks. But is the city well equipped to handle a fire disaster? The question is of prime importance as it involves the lives of thousands of visitors thronging Gurgaon malls and multiplexes every day. The city has a huge workforce that works in tall glitzy office buildings. With so many lives at stake, is Gurgaon prepared to handle fire outbreaks?

Let’s have a look at some interesting figures. Gurgaon has more than 700 buildings that are higher than 90 meters. However, the fire stations do not have matching hydraulic machines to fight fire up to this height. There are 4 Government sanctioned fire stations in the city that can handle a fire disaster caused within 10 km radius. If the administration is actually concerned about handling fire disasters in an efficient manner then the fire stations should cater to areas within 3 km range. The fire fighters should reach the spot of the incident within 5 minutes, but with less number of fire stations in Gurgaon this is not possible. This is the internationally accepted norm and applied in most of the developed cities of India also.

If HUDA cannot have as many fire stations as required, the Administration should encourage private builders to have the provision of small and self-sufficient fire stations catering to the nearby colonies.

Apart from the 3 major fire stations owned by the Government, there are 3 private fire stations that cater to private companies like Maruti Udyog, Honda Factory, Air Force, and companies in Udyog Vihar. These are privately owned services and do not cater outside their area of operation. Gurgaon has a total population of Gurgaon is 15,14,085. In a city with such huge population are 4 fire stations enough?

Gurgaon is not at all equipped for Disaster Management. Not only fire, the city also cannot handle natural disasters like earthquake. Gurgaon falls in the seismic zone 4 but the administration does not ensure that buildings are constructed according to earthquake safety standards. We can well imagine the casualties that might occur in case of a severe earthquake affecting high rises as tall as 20 floors.

· The need of the hour is to put a proper Disaster Management Plan in place by the authorities. HUDA should take immediate actions in the following areas:

· Recruit enough number of fire personnel to ensure that timely and effective relief is provided in case of a fire tragedy.

· Construct more numbers of fire stations that can cater immediately to the neighboring areas and timely relief is provided to the victims

· Own state-of-the art and sophisticated fire-fighting machinery like big hydraulic platforms that can cater to high rise buildings.

· Train the fire fighting professionals to use state of the art machinery by conducting fire drills and mock exercises.

While Haryana administration has the major task of preparing Gurgaon to handle fire and other disasters, the citizens also play an important role here. The private societies should conduct their own fire drill exercises and prepare the residents for similar crisis.

However all said and done, Gurgaon fire stations are not properly equipped to handle fire emergencies in the city and the administration needs to take up the issue seriously as a number of lives are involved.

Reecha Kumar, Gurgaonsite