Apartment owners can now breathe easy. The fire and rescue department has decided to make it mandatory for builders to provide safety certificates and a detailed sketch of security measures, along with the sales deeds to home buyers. DGP and Commandant General of the Fire and Rescue department, Loknath Behera, said the certificates and other details have to be provided in a compact disc to individual customers.
“It should contain all the details on fire-fighting equipment available in the apartment, the logistics, construction plan of fire exit, among other things, along with the approval of the department that the building is fire safe,” he said.
In many of the apartments, the department has found that the fire-fighting equipment is either missing or dysfunctional. In a random audit undertaken by the department, it was found that safety measures were compromised in several apartments which were given clearance prior to June 01, 2015.
The department has decided to advise them to put certain minimum fire safety systems in place. “If they are not willing to do so, such buildings will be declared unsafe,” Behera said. The fire and rescue department already have 160 applications from several builders awaiting no-objection certificates from the department. Only after getting the department’s nod can they hand them over to buyers. The matter has been pending for long, as it had become controversial ever since the former fire and rescue chief, Jacob Thomas, decided not to give clearances and had insisted that safety measures should meet the guidelines specified in the National Building Code (NBC), and not just Kerala Municipal Building Rules (KMBR).
