The recent fire tragedies in Delhi’s children hospital and Rajkot’s gaming zone, claiming at least 40 lives have put the spotlight on safety norms in the country and the need for enforcement measures to avoid such disasters.
The East Delhi’s children hospital where the fire broke out at Saturday night, which claimed lives of seven newborns, was allegedly trading oxygen cylinders, as complained by locals. There is still no confirmation whether the fire erupted due to the cylinder blast but there were complaints of “illegal refilling of cylinders on the first floor of the hospital building, as per a report by Hindustan Times.
In Rajkot, the fire at the gaming zone occurred due to an electric short-circuit. The indoor gaming was a steel-fabricated shed around three-storey tall, 50 metres wide and 60 metres long.
What are Fire Safety Norms in India?
The rules called National Building Code (NBC) were published by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) in 1970 and updated in 2016. The code is meant for all agencies involved in building construction, and provides detailed guidelines regarding the construction requirements, maintenance and fire safety of buildings.
Also, the fire services in India fall under the state subject and are listed as a municipal function in the XII Schedule of the Constitution of India under Article 243 (W). Meaning, the state governments are responsible for fire prevention and ensuring safety of lives and properties by implementing measures through the State Fire Services Act or building bylaws.
The ‘Model Building Bye Laws 2016’, issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, guide the states and Union Territories to frame their respective building bylaws for fire protection and safety requirements as well.
Additionally, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has laid down a few fire safety requirements for public buildings like hospitals that include features such as minimum open safety space, exit mechanisms, dedicated staircases and evacuation drills.
According to a study by the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), “lack of planning and poor implementation of norms in urban areas is a major reason behind increasing fire risks as it leads to the formation of informal settlements and over densification. In several cases, these informal settlements, excluded from the purview of building bylaws and planning regulations, are developed without any consideration to fire safety. With increasing urban slum population, this has become a matter of concern”.
What are the Specific Codes?
As per the National Building Code, absolute fire safety is not attainable in practice, but certain measures can be taken to provide safety from fire.
The Code specifies the demarcation and restrictions on the construction of buildings in fire zones. For instance, residential areas, and educational and institutional buildings fall under Fire Zone 1. This is done to ensure that industrial and hazardous structures do not coexist with residential, institutional and business buildings.
The measures apply to high-rise buildings; special buildings like hotels, educational institutes, businesses, storage and industrial, where any of the structures have a floor area more than 500 square metres on any one or more floors; assembly buildings; buildings with area more than 300 square metres of incidental assembly occupancy on any floor; and those with two basements or more, or with one basement of area more than 500 square metres.
“Non-combustible materials should be used for construction of buildings, and the internal walls of staircase enclosures should be of brickwork or reinforced concrete or any other material of construction with a minimum of 120 min rating,” the Code says.
For electrical installation, the NBC says it is “desirable that the wiring and cabling are with flame retardant property”. Medium and low voltage wiring running in shafts, and within false ceilings shall run in metal conduit, it adds. “The electric distribution cables/wiring shall be laid in a separate shaft. The shaft shall be sealed on every floor with fire-stop materials having the same fire resistance as that of the floor. High, medium and low voltage wiring running in shaft and in false ceiling shall run in separate shaft/conduits,” the Code says.
All metallic items such as steel structural members should be bonded properly to the earthing system.
How Many Fire Incidents Have Happened?
According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India (NCRB), a total of 3,375 fire incidents were reported in the past two years in 2021 (1,808) and 2022 (1,567) due to electrical short circuits, 330 deaths were reported in commercial building fires in 2019, and 6,329 people lost their lives due to fire incidents in residential buildings across the country.
The data on Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) shows on average 35 people were killed daily due to fire between 2016 and 2020. The number of people dying in the incidents were 16,900 in 2016 and 9,110 in 2020.
Maharashtra and Gujarat have accounted for 30% of the country’s fire accident deaths, as per the data. The NCRB lists electrical short circuits or gas cylinder/ stove bursts, human negligence and ill-formed habits as major causes of fires in the country.
The data indicates that fire accidents continue to cause heavy casualties, with no lessons learnt from the 1997 Uphaar Cinema tragedy or the Kumbakonam fire that killed 90 schoolchildren in 2004.
Around 83,872 fire incidents were recorded in India during 2014 to 2018, as per the Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of States, NCRB.
Challenges in Compliance of Safety Measures
Although the fire services norms exist in states, but there is lack of standardisation and uniform safety legislation. With NCB being a “recommendatory document,” some of its provisions are frequently ignored at the local level. Even mandatory certifications are not complied with. The Code itself mentions that in case of “practical difficulty or to avoid unnecessary hardship, without sacrificing reasonable safety, local head, fire services may consider exemptions from the Code.”
Local bodies fail to conduct regular fire safety audits to ensure compliance.
For instance, in the Rajkot fire incident, the shortage of staff has come across as a key factor behind laxity in implementing the fire safety rules. The accused flouted the norms by setting up the 50-metre wide and 60-metre long structure with the height of around two-storey building using metal sheet fabrication. As per the FIR, the accused had not obtained a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the local fire department and did not even have a proper fire-fighting equipment, as mentioned in a report by The Hindu.
The owners also used bricks and concrete, tyres and wood furniture in the construction of the gaming zone, which led to rapid spread of fire.
In 2020, the National Institute of Disaster Management mentioned in a report on ‘Fires in India: Learning Lessons for Urban Safety’ (2020),” “The apathy of the authorities in taking any action has clearly indicated that little has been learnt from the previous fire outbreaks.”
According to a study by NIDM, there is an urgent need for strict adherence guidelines for existing old structures regarding fire prevention. A strict scheduling of renewal of licences and permits and regular monitoring and inspection by authorities of the installed fire-fighting equipment should be done to avoid any tragedy.