Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Nov 9: At a time when winter is considered to be fire prone, lack of Fire Station in Goripora area in the outskirts of Srinagar is irking the residents.
The residents said that the area is comprised of dozens of localities including Goripora, Tengpora, Chonchun etc and lack of Fire Station is making the area vulnerable to fire.”The area is in dire need of a Fire Station as it comprises of dozens of localities. If authorities will construct a Fire Station in the area, it will cater to all the localities and many untoward incidents will be saved,” they said.
As per the residents, the nearest Fire Station to the area is about more than six kilometers away and it takes a lot of time to the fire brigades to reach there. “The nearest Fire Station catering the area is at Safakadal but they cannot reach in time when any incident happens. Last winter many fire incidents took place in the area and in every incident, fire tenders reached the spot at least an hour late,” Shahbaz Ahmad, a resident of the area said.
He lamented that despite several applications to the administration, they have failed to provide a Fire and Emergency Services Station in the area. “We approached several officials of the administration as well as concerned MLA regarding the issue but our pleas are falling into deaf years. We were assured that a fire station will be provided to the area but till date nothing happened,” he added.
However, as per the sources in the J&K Fire and Emergency Services (JKFES) Department, there are 2300 staffers at present in the department, 1282 less than the sanctioned strength of 3582 staffers. “The staff crunch compels the JKFES to manage only 87 Fire Stations and posts instead of the existing 156 stations and posts. The leftover 69 posts and stations are managed by internal adjustment of the staff,” sources said.
An official of the department while admitting the lack of staff in the department said that the department is facing shortage of staff and there is no way of constructing another Fire Station. “We have such an acute shortfall of staff that two fire tenders at different locations in an area are managed by a single driver. We are already facing shortage of manpower we cannot think of constructing another Fire Station at this time,” he said.
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