Secunderabad Club: Fire and police permission must for restoration works

Hyderabad: Officials of Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) on Sunday said that Secunderabad Club authorities would have to preliminarily obtain a no objection certificate (NOC) from the fire department and police permission to go ahead with any restoration works to the structure.

Chief executive officer of SCB B. Ajit Reddy said permission for any restoration or reconstruction works would be similar to any new structure depending on how the club plans to go about the restoration.

“As of now, nothing can be said without an inspection by our engineers,” he said and added that authorities of the club have not applied for any modification to the existing structure nor has it taken permission for building a new structure.

The heritage building falls under the old grants bungalow category, which means the ministry of defence is the owner of the 20.18 acre land. Secunderabad Club is the holder of occupancy rights of the land under perpetual lease.

Ch. Uma Shanker, assistant cantonment planner, SCB, said the land, which falls under survey number 477 of the general land register, comes under the management of the defence estates office (DEO).

Incidentally, the state government proposed to construct an 18-km-long flyover to ease traffic woes between Jubilee Bus Station (JBS) and the Shamirpet outer ring road.

The proposal includes widening the road to 200 feet from the existing 30 feet. The process of demarcating the club land that is required for the works has been completed. If the club opts for reconstruction then it should allow for setbacks. The government wanted to acquire the land for widening of the arterial Rajiv Rahadari as part of the proposed Strategic Road Development Project (SRDP).

M. Phani Kumar, assistant engineer of SCB, said that if the club’s authorities wish to conduct restoration works to the fire-stricken structure, they would have to consult SCB with the fire NOC and police report. Following this, licensed stability engineers would have to be deployed to assess the stability of the existing structure, he added.

“The reports would then be sent for the CEO’s consideration before the matter is brought before the board.”

“As per guidelines, a report on the cause of fire needs to be submitted.

In view of the safety of the public, and club members and staff, all fire safety related resources in all the structures would have to be examined,” the official explained.

However, if the club authorities decide that the monument be razed down to reconstruct a new structure, the club authorities would need an NOC from the DEO to build it with the same plinth area, he added.

Special chief secretary doubts fire safety measures in Club

Taking to twitter while terming the massive fire at Secunderabad Club ‘very unfortunate’, special chief secretary Arvind Kumar asked the director general of fire services to ascertain whether the club had appropriate fire protection measures installed and if they had the mandatory NOC from the appropriate authority. He also questioned whether the safety audit was in place or not.

In a reply it evoked, Khaja Aijazuddin, an advocate in High Court, said “Prima facie it appears #SecunderabadClub lacks in fire NOC as mandated under law & hence looking into  magnitude of #fire occurred, @TelanganaDGP @CPHydCity shall close the #SecunderabadClub forthwith n initiate high level enquiry against office bearers by entrusting  to #CB-CID,” (sic).

“Appropriate safety measures are overlooked during sanctioning NOC's to several commercial establishments. Violations need to be recorded/reported on regular basis,not after occurrence incidents.

Hopefully this shall be a learning lesson for everyone.” (sic), wrote another user.