Against all odds, fire stations serving public in Nizamabad

Nizamabad: The Nizamabad District Fire Office are in a financial turmoil. There are 10 fire stations in the erstwhile Nizamabad district. The department staff is available 24/7 for all types of emergencies and rescue activities like railroad accidents, drowning incidents, building collapse, animal rescue etc. Standby fire safety arrangements will be made at VVIP programmes, meetings, festivals at temples, major events in view of public safety.

Emergency fire services are often forced into debts due to lack of budgetary allocations. Nizamabad joint district has eight fire stations and two fire outposts.

Earlier, Gandhari and Bhimgal outposts were run by private organisations. Nizamabad, Nizamabad Rural, Armoor, Bodhan, Kamareddy, Ellareddy, Banswada and Madnoor are the ten fire stations working in the district. But there are no regular fire-fighting staff and managing the work by appointing home guards.

Nizamabad Rural fire station was recently set up and there is an urgent need to establish a permanent staff structure. Nizamabad and Nizamabad Rural fire staff are adjusting their duties with mutual understanding. But this adjustment of human resources cannot hide the financial difficulties.

The fire stations are being maintained by taking loans. The bills of diesel are piled up. Each fire station has to pay an average of Rs four lakhs for fuel dues. Petrol bunk owners are unwilling to sell fuel to the fire department as the staff are not paying in cash and pending the bills.

Besides the pending fuel bills, there is no funding for vehicle maintenance also. Moreover, pending electricity bills of each station are going into lakhs of rupees.

Against all these odds, the fire-fighting staff had prevented as many as 362 fire accidents in Nizamabad district this summer. The fire department also conducts community safety awareness programmes.