MARGAO: After fire incident in councillors’ chamber, Margao Municipal Council (MMC) has now initiated the process pertaining to fire audits, which had fallen on deaf ears for the last several years.
Manuel Barretto, Chief Officer of Margao Municipal Council told O Heraldo that he will be writing to the Fire and Emergency Services to conduct a fire audit of the municipal buildings, besides training programmes to the staff of the civic body regarding steps needed in an emergency situation.
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It may be recalled that on Wednesday afternoon, a minor fire was reported in the councillors’ chamber of the MMC, wherein upon the timely action from the councillor Mahesh Amonkar, Camilo Barretto, and staffers managed to extinguish the fire.
Following the incident, the Shadow Council for Margao (SCM) also called for a fire audit of the building. SCM had time and again raised the issue of fire audit by submitting the representation to the civic body.
“I don’t know when the last fire audit of the Municipality building was done. However, a serious note has been taken after Wednesday’s incident, wherein the civic body will ask the fire and emergency services to do a fire audit
at the earliest,” the Chief Officer said.
He also admitted that few of the fire extinguishers at the Municipality building were outdated and nobody was equipped with the equipment to
use them during the
emergency.
“Training will be also given to the staffers so that they get the proper knowledge in order to use those fire extinguishers, besides other measures at the time of an emergency,” the CO further said.
After the fire incident, several councillors on Thursday visited the councillors’ chamber and expressed frustration pertaining to safety of the MMC building and the important documents.
