Mumbai: Fire Brigade set to use unique IDs for buildings for better fire compliance

Recently, a major fire took place at 20-storey Sachinam Heights in Nana Chowk, Tardeo. File pic

In a bid to streamline the process of fire audit, the Mumbai Fire Brigade will now use a unique identification number for buildings which will be common for every department in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. This will pave the way for making data of fire compliance available in one click. Buildings, too, will get notices online for not complying with fire safety measures.

The issue of fire safety non-compliance comes to the fore time and again, especially after major fire incidents. As per the Maharashtra Fire Prevention Life Safety Act, 2006, it is mandatory for the owners, occupiers or housing societies to get fire audits conducted by approved/licenced auditors every six months. The MFB receives fire audits from housing societies across the city, but it does not have the data of societies that do not follow the rules, making it difficult to act against erring societies.

As per the latest report shared by MFB, it carried out inspections of 223 buildings from November 8, 2020 to January 8, 2021 under Mumbai Agni Suraksha Mohim. Out of these, only 23 buildings complied with the norms.

Current system time consuming

After the fire in One Avighna Park at Currey Road in October 2021, the MFB submitted a reply in the standing committee of the BMC that it received fire audit reports from 2,170 buildings but it has no clue about how many buildings did not conduct the audit and submit reports. It further added that as the process is done manually, there is no data compilation at a central level.

"The process is manual. We sent notices to the societies physically. The process is time consuming and requires a lot of manpower. Even handling records is cumbersome. So we have decided to develop the online system which will be ready within two months," said Hemant Parab, chief fire officer, MFB. "Once the system is in place, there will be no need for manual processing. All the data will be available in one click. We will come to know if the building hasn't submitted a regular audit and we can send the notice through email or contact number," said Parab.

Unique number

The MFB will use a unique identification number for the maintenance of the record. The UID system was introduced in 2016 and is currently used by the Tax Assessment and collection department. "The 15 digit number or Section Account Code (SAC) is derived from a number of wards, property, building and flat. We will share the data with other departments as per the instructions," said Vishwas Mote, assistant commissioner of the Tax Assessment and Collection Department.

"Departments like building proposal, water, shop and establishment, licence have their own number system to identify the buildings. Now all the departments including fire, health, sewerage, buildings and factory will use SAC numbers along with their numbers of identification," said Parag Masurkar, DMC of the BMC.

One more death in Nana Chowk fire

As per information received from Kasturba Gandhi Hospital, Madhuri Chopdekar, 35, who got injured in the Nana Chowk fire last Saturday, succumbed at midnight on Thursday. Currently, one patient at Masina Hospital is in critical condition. Of the 10 patients at Bhatia Hospital, five are in critical condition.

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Time (in months) needed for the system to be ready