20220713 Fire breaks out at Crossings scrap shop, rain & firemen to the rescue
India Jul 13 2022 “Automobile & Railway” “Building” “Houses”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 1 to 29 Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Fire breaks out at Crossings scrap shop, rain & firemen to the rescue
Updated: 2022-07-13
Ghaziabad: A major disaster was averted at Divyansh Fabio housing society in Crossings Republik after firemen doused just in time a blaze that broke out at a scrap shop in the vicinity on Tuesday morning.
The fire began at the scrap shop around 8.30am and soon engulfed an anadjacent iron mesh outlet. Two fire tenders were soon pressed into service to douse the flames. Fortunately, no casualties were reported. But the fire triggered a traffic jam on the main road outside the society connecting NH-9.
“We got information at 8.38am and two of our tenders reached the location in around half an hour, one from the Kotwali fire station and other from Vaishali. The fire was brought under control in 15-20 minutes,” Sunil Kumar Singh, chief fire officer, told TOI.
However, Anil Varshney, the RWA president of Divyansh Fabio Society, said, “Due to the early morning showers, the fire did not spread much though there was maximum chances of it engulfing our society.”
In fact, Crossings Republik, UP’s first integrated township, is dotted with over 30 highrises but the local residents are struggling to get a fire station even after 17 years of its existence. The nearest fire station is in the Kotwali area, which is a good 10 kms away.
A bickering over land involving the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA), the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC), the district fire department and Crossings Infrastructure Private Limited (CIPL), a consortium of builders, has led to such a situation that a fire station remains a distant dream in the township which is home to over a lakh residents.
In 2019, CIPL handed over 2,500 sqm of land to the GDA for setting up a fire station, but the project did not get the mandatory go-ahead from the fire department which then said that at least 4,148 sqm was required for the same.
With no land of its own, the development authority is now relying on the GMC to make available the required land. “There are at least two projects in the township which have been stuck due to unavailability of land — a road connectivity to Greater Noida and a fire station. We are working to resolve the land issue and have also sought help from the GMC, but so far nothing has materialised,” said a GDA official.
Municipal commissioner Mahendra Singh Tanwar, on the other hand, said, “I am not privy to any letter which the GDA claims to have written to us for land requirement for a fire station. Even if we have the required land, there is a complex process to hand over the same as it needs approval from the GMC Board, which is the highest decision-making body.”
Sumit Agarwal, CEO of CIPL, said, “We have already allocated to the GDA some 2,500 sqm of land adjacent to the police post. Work is pending at the end of the chief fire officer, who claims the same is not good enough for a fire station to come up.”
The residents of Crossings Republik, who have been demanding a fire station since 2011, however, are now unwilling to buy such arguments.
Ujjwal Mishra, the general secretary of Crossing Republik Flat Owners Association, said, “There are around 10 highrises in Crossings Republik, where the fire safety systems are not even working. In 2019, CIPL gave its available land but it was not enough for a fire station. So, at a meeting last year, it was decided that a portion of GMC land adjacent to the builder’s land will also be used for this purpose. But the GMC has not yet handed over the land.”
When contacted, Sunil Kumar Singh, chief fire officer of Ghaziabad, told TOI, “We can’t work on the fire station project till the time the required land is not officially handed over to our department. This has to be done by the GDA. In 2021, it was decided that the GMC has to part with its land for the project, but the handover is yet to take place.”
Web Source: The Times of India