M A I N   N E W S

Goods for export to Pak gutted in railway godown
Varinder Walia and Neeraj Bagga

Fire brigade personnel try to extinguish the fire that broke out in a railway godown in Amritsar on Monday. — Photo by Rajiv Sharma

Amritsar, February 6
Goods worth crores were gutted in a fire that broke out in a godown of the Railways here. The material was to be exported to Pakistan. It included relief material for the earthquake-hit.

The fire also engulfed a bogey of a goods train standing nearby. The bogey contained perishable goods, medicines, fruit and other items. Highly inflammable material like tyres, plastic goods and tents, which were stacked in the godown, proved a catalyst for the fire.

The Railways authorities allegedly did not cooperate much with the firefighters in extinguishing the flames. Eleven fire-engines were pressed into service, but it took several hours to bring the devastating flames under control.

The fire brigade staff had to fetch water from more than 3 km from the site of mishap. Senior Railways officials, including Mr Manjit Singh Bhullar, Assistant Traffic Manager, did not come forward to give any information regarding the damage.

However, senior GRP official Rattan Chand rushed to Amritsar to conduct an on-the-spot inquiry. He also refused to entertain any query of mediapersons.

It is not clear how the department allowed the inflammable material to be stored in such a manner. Obviously, the authorities had stored the material by circumventing various regulations.

Many heads in the Railways may roll after completion of the inquiry into the incident.

The godown had products like tyres, tents, medicine, books, seeds, pulses, cardamom, paan (beetle leaves) and many other perishable goods. The entire building was gutted and the flames could be seen from quite a distance.

Mr Tarlochan Singh, District Fire Officer, said they received the information about fire around 3.55 am. Three fire-engines were immediately rushed to the spot, he added.

He rued that the Railways was ill-equipped to cope with huge fire incidents. He criticised the casual preparation of the Railways to deal with such incidents. He said there was no system in place near the warehouses to douse the fire. Water connection was also not available there and they had to bring water from 3 km away from the spot, he added.

He claimed that 60 persons pressed into the fire-fighting effort.

Mr Jaspal Singh, a clearing agent, said the stacking of material continued till mid-night. He said losses were huge and goods belonging to numerous businessmen based across the country were stored here.

The exporters would face a lot of inconvenience in getting compensation, as it would be difficult to evaluate the exact losses, he added. Exporters alleged that no receipt was issued to them at the time of depositing goods in godowns since there had been a practice of recording the information in the entry register only.