Hyderabad: A lack of sufficient staff in the fire department is taking a toll on existing infrastructure as employees claim they are being forced to work overtime and without leaves. A fire officer spoke on the condition of anonymity. “At every fire station, there is a dearth of four to five firemen and drivers. There are around 20 fire stations in the city and every station is facing a staff crunch — except the head office, Assembly, Secretariat and the district fire office. Apart from these, all other stations are short staffed.”
He added, “Due to shortage of drivers, the additional director general has recruited temporary drivers from the RTC and they were supposed to drive the heavy vehicles. But there are a few assistant district fire officers who are using the drivers to drive their cars given to them by the government. This kind of mismanagement should be brought to the notice of higher officials.”
For example, the ADFO of Salarjung Museum T. Srinivas has taken the RTC drivers to drive his own Bolero which is against rules, it has been revealed.
Due to shortage of staff, entire operations are being carried out by skeletal emergency teams who are often multi-tasking. When contacted, the district fire officer (DFO) said: “We are managing with whatever we have. Until now, there aren’t any problems reported due to staff shortage. The government has recruited new staff this year and they are undergoing training. They will join in a few months.”
