Mumbai: Alleging that the mini fire station in Chandivali does not have any staff or vehicles deployed, the Chandivali Citizens Welfare Association (CCWA) has demanded a permanent fire station in the area as it has many high-rise buildings.
Mandeep Singh Makkar, founder member of CCWA, said that despite Chandivali boasting of nearly 70 high-rise buildings, with an average of 15 floors, the nearest fire station is in Saki Naka. And any fire truck from there is likely to get stuck at the Saki Naka junction signal, which is a traffic nightmare, causing delays in case of an emergency.
“In 2015, seven people were killed when a high rise building caught fire in our area. It will be eight years now and the fire brigade has not constructed a permanent fire station in the area till date,” said Makkar.
“The mini fire station is always empty and is used by an ice cream vendor to wash his cart and there are two hawkers, who have set up their stalls at the wall of this mini fire station,” he said.
“All the buildings have to follow strict compliance and fire safety certification, which we do, but the hawkers set-up gas cylinders and thus, endangering our life,” added Makkar.
The association said that for more than a month now, it has been tweeting about the mini fire station being empty. They also alleged that whenever they have complained, a mini fire van is deployed for a few hours with hardly one staff member and then it is back to being empty.
“Just last year, we paid property tax worth ₹66 lakh for our housing society, but when it comes to emergency responses, the civic body is not giving us enough facilities,” said Makkar.
Sanjay Manjrekar, Mumbai fire brigade chief, said, “I will look into this complaint. Sometimes the vehicles are dispatched to be on standby for any nearby fires or if there are any VVIP movements. Also, the shift changes at 7am, 3pm and 11pm, hence, during that time, the vehicle may be unavailable for an hour or so since this is not a fire station, but it is only connected to nearby fire station.”