Almost all coaching centres in Ranchi lack fire safety tools

RANCHI: The fire at a coaching centre in Gujarat's Surat on Friday, in which at least 19 students were killed, came as a wakeup call for unsafe commercial and educational building across the country. However, most institutes in Ranchi haven't learnt any lessons from such tragedies in the past.
Lalpur is a hub for coaching institutes in the city and houses around seven dozen coaching institutes that offer tuitions for medical, engineering and competitive examinations for various government services.On Saturday, TOI visited several such buildings in the area and found that none of them possess no-objection certificates (NOC) from the fire department.
Hariom Tower, a commercial complex on Circular Road here, has several big coaching institutes of the city and receives daily footfall of around 2,000 students. When TOI visited it, it found the fire extinguishers and fire-resistant ducts are lying defunct due to lack of maintenance. Fire extinguisher cylinders were spotted on all the floors of the seven-storey building, but none of them have been serviced in the last two years.
Ajay Singh, president of Hariom Tower Shopkeepers' Association, who also runs a coaching institute in the building, said the fire last drill was carried out two years ago. He, however, was quick to add that the building has an NOC from the fire department. When TOI asked for a copy of the certificate the mainatenance staff looked clueless.
Hariom Tower is a case in point. The owners of many commercial buildings that houses coaching institutes aren't even aware of fire and safety regulations. "We are here to train students not to take care of building issues," came the response from a mathematics teacher at a leading institute in Lalpur, on being asked about the safety of the students.
Several buildings in East Jail Road, which also has a number of coaching institutes, were found to be openly flouting norms. Most of them doesn't have provisions for fire safety in the buildings. Pradeep Chaudhary, the owner of Avinash Complex on East Jail Road, feigned ignorance about NOC from the fire department. "There are no provisions for installation of fire safety ducts in my building map. Hence, I haven't kept any such provisions. I will apply for the same if the authorities tell me it is necessary," Chaudhary said.
Swati Chaubey, an engineering aspirant who visits Hariom Tower, said: "I have been visiting the building daily for mathematics classes, but we have never seen any fire drills yet. The fire extinguishers are not in working condition and I don't think they will be of any help during emergency."
Ranchi municipal corporation (RMC), which issues trade licences to coaching institutes, said the onus of keeping premises safe and hazard-proof lies on building owners. "We issue trade licences after verification of Aadhaar card, electricity bill and rental agreement," RMC assistant municipal commissioner Rajnish Kumar said.