Chennai: Fire accidents in buildings are not new to residents of Chennai and following the accident, authorities, activists and the public will be on their toes to address the problems. But, all activity will lose steam within a week and people will continue to live in those illegal buildings.
However, this time in the wake of a fire accident in T Nagar, Zonal officers of North Madras received orders from the Madras high court to speed up the process of sending de-occupation notices to shopkeepers and 65 shops have been sealed already.
“We issue online notices now as opposed to physical notices that were sent earlier. A total of 2,600 online de-occupation notices were issued in Sowcarpet recently and 65 shops have been sealed already. As digital notice allows better monitoring, there will be more transparency,” K. Sivasoundravalli, Corporation Zonal Officer, told Deccan Chronicle. People can also get information about the proceedings after giving an RTI request.
Though the shopkeepers who received the notices admit that facilities for fire protection and extinguishing systems remain a rarity in congested pockets of North Chennai, they feel it is not “feasible” for them to shift the place.
“We have been depending on the place for our livelihood for the past two generations. Vacating this place is almost impossible. Moreover, installing fire safety system will cost a lot,” said Priyansh Sharma, who runs a textile shop in Sowcarpet.
Some shop owners say there is “no use” of installing an extinguisher, according to them, investing money on something that is not used on a daily basis means a waste of time and money.
An official from the fire safety department who chose anonymity said that it is practically impossible for them to work on fire safety measures as the buildings have common walls and to install equipment, they would need at least 100 metre gap.
“T Nagar has also received similar instructions and we told about her helpless condition, even then. The poor plight of buildings and their safety measures can only be changed after the infrastructure design is completely revised,” he said.
CMDA official and MLA of the area Sekar Babu maintained silence on the issue and refused to comment.
