21 July,2011 06:21 AM IST | | Rinkita Gurav
To make the upcoming residential and commercial structures in the city safe from fires, Municipal Commissioner Subodh Kumar has proposed new amendments in the Development Control Rules, 1991 which he finished presenting to CM Prithviraj Chavan yesterday, along with the recommendation of charging for super built-up FSI.
Kumar has called for a mandatory fire chute in every high-rise above 70 m roughly 10 storeys to help in evacuating people stuck in case of emergencies like fire.
The chute would be like a funnel and would get one person at a time from any floor of the building to the ground level, thus saving time in rescue operations.
"There is only one building in the city with such a system. It is necessary for every upcoming high rise to have it," said Kumar.
The second suggestion was mandatory fire check floors after every 70 m of a building. So if the first check floor is at 70 m, the next would be at 140 m and so on.
"They would not be livable and have to be 1.5 m high. An extra FSI would be charged for more than that height," Kumar said.
The third thing is to amplify the norm of having a refuge area on every seventh floor of a building and have it every alternate floor instead.
The refuge area should not exceed 100 sq ft.
"This way, occupants would not have to run seven storeys to seek haven during an emergency. Also, there won't be any misuse of the refuge areas as it is currently done," said Kumar.