MARGAO: It has been revealed that several government buildings and public offices in the commercial town of Margao are vulnerable to a serious fire threat. Shockingly, many premises, including the Margao Municipal building, have not carried out their fire audit.
Herald investigation further revealed that the issue pertaining to the same was ignored by the concerned government authorities, despite raising the voice, way back in 2018 by one of the NGOs from Margao. It seems that the heads of the offices and departments are least bothered about fire safety measures.
Even Agnelo Fernandes, Chief Officer of Margao Municipal Council, admitted that no fire audit has been done of the Municipal building during his tenure as the CO of the civic body. He also said that this issue is of serious concern.
It is pertinent to note that being a commercial town, there are several government buildings and public offices located in the town, as hundreds of citizens are noticed visiting the offices to avail of the services. However, it has been revealed that many, including the government buildings, have neither carried out their fire audits nor have renewed the fire safety measures for the last many years, risking the lives of the public.
Reacting to the issue Savio Coutinho, Convenor of Shadow Council for Margao (SCM) said every government building, including the Margao Municipal Council building, is vulnerable to a serious fire threat.
“In the absence of any fire fighting equipment and basic fire fighting training, in the event of any incident of fire, the entire office along with important records will not take time to get reduced into ashes,” he said.
After highlighting this issue, the civic body had resolved in one of its meetings in October 2019, to undertake a Fire Audit. Sadly, as usual, this resolution remained confined to the files only. Speaking to Herald, Chief Officer admitted that the civic body has not carried out fire audit at least during his tenure.
“I will check if a fire audit has been done in the past, and will initiate further steps if not,” he assured.
The District Collector is also called upon to make it mandatory for a Fire Audit of all Government/Public offices in the city.
“I have doubts that even the old Collectorate building which is now occupied by several government departments has not done a fire audit. We had written letters in the past on several occasions in this regard,” he informed.
He further said that almost all the new buildings includings the school buildings have put in place the fire safety measures, but the question remains about the other buildings.
