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Owners of gutted building to be prosecuted for negligence

— Photo: R. Shivaji Rao

COLLECTING EVIDENCE: Additional Director-General of Police (Fire and Rescue Services) K.R. Shyam Sundar (extreme right) visiting the site of the fire on Ranganathan Street, Chennai, on Tuesday.

Chennai: The owners of the multi-storeyed Saravana Stores building on Ranganthan Street that was gutted on Monday will be prosecuted, K.R. Shyam Sundar, Director, Fire & Rescue Services (DFRS), announced on Tuesday.

The building owners have not obtained the necessary fire licence for a multi-storeyed building.

The records of the other building, Lucky Plaza, were being verified and if found inadequate, notice would be issued to the owners asking them to show cause why action should not be taken, he said.

Two persons died in the fire accident: Kottaisamy (27) from Kizhaparur, Tirunelveli district, and Ramajeyam (24) from Armuganeri, Tuticorin district.

Police have arrested the manager, Selvam Israel, and the supervisor, Jabasingh Paul Gnanadurai, of Saravana Stores. Based on a complaint made by Selvam, the police had registered a case of accidental fire.

This was altered on Tuesday to 304 IPC (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder).

Dr. Shyam Sundar said the multi-storeyed building did not have the mandatory “wet riser” arrangement either to fight fire.

Instead, “down-comer” pipers were used and even they were found improperly maintained and the valves were not functioning properly.

He also pointed out that neither a sprinkler system nor a smoke detector was installed in the multi-storeyed building.

“Had they been installed, the fire could have detected earlier and the sprinkler system would have contained the fire locally.”

The necessary stability certificate had to be obtained from the PWD before putting the buildings to use, he said.

Dr. Shyam Sundar said that as per the DFRS records, most of the buildings on Ranganathan Street were not registered as multi-storeyed buildings and hence they had not applied for a fire licence. He explained that the licence was issued in two stages.

When an application is made for permission to construct a multi-storeyed building, first a ‘no objection certificate’ is issued with necessary conditions. After the completion of the building, it is inspected and a fire licence is issued, which has to be renewed annually.

Many buildings on Ranganthan Street had applied for building permission as ordinary buildings and not as multi-storeyed buildings.

After obtaining permission they extended the building in violation of building rules.

As a result, they did not find a place in the DFRS records and had not installed the mandatory fire protection system, he said.

The DFRS was convening a meeting of shops owners at T. Nagar on September 6 to advise them on fire-fighting measures.

Since many buildings had violated the rules they could not install fire protection measures as recommended by the National Building Code. Hence, alternative measures needed to be put in place.

The shop owners would be asked to implement fire-fighting measures within a timeframe.

In case they failed, action would be initiated against them, he said.

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