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Pushpa Girimaji
explains the BIS code that looks at risk-free environment for the school-going.
It's called the 'Code of practice for fire safety in educational institutions'. Brought out by the Bureau of Indian Standards, the code looks mainly at three aspects pertaining to fire: its prevention through safety measures, early warning systems and fire dousing provisions in case of a fire and fire escapes to prevent injuries and deaths in case of an accident. This was published nearly eight years ago and if only the code was in practice in at least educational institutions imparting primary education, there would not have been a tragedy of the magnitude that we saw in Kumbakonam last year. The part of the BIS code dealing with preventive measures, for example, looks at the building: the quality of construction, occupant load, exits, corridors and passage ways, doorways and staircases. Next, it lays down guidelines for the safety of electrical equipment and electrical wiring, to prevent short circuits and focuses on the need for miniature circuit breakers/earth leakage circuit breakers. The code also specifies the various systems that need to be installed, including water storage tanks and fire pumps, to deal with a fire. It also refers to fire detection and alarm systems and emergency and escape lighting. It would be prudent for state governments to make the code mandatory for at least primary and pre-primary schools and enforce it. Of course, fire safety goes well beyond the code. If the school, for example, has a canteen, then it has to exercise utmost precaution to prevent fire. Similarly, during the annual day celebrations, the school has to ensure that if temporary structures are built, only fire retardant materials are used. The playgrounds and the play equipment should be constructed in such a way as to prevent injuries. So also toilets and swimming pools. Similarly, if the school is in a seismic zone, then the school building ought to be earthquake resistant. Thanks to the absence of such safety consciousness, we have witnessed many an avoidable tragedy involving schools and schoolchildren. In 1995, hundreds of schoolchildren died while watching the annual day celebrations of a school in Dabwali in Sirsa, because the school had paid no attention to fire safety while pitching a shamiana for the purpose. Earlier, three-year-old Brinda had drowned in a septic tank left open on the school premises in Tamil Nadu. Awarding compensation to the parents, the apex consumer court had warned in 2001 that when a school admits a child, it undertakes to look after the safety of the child too during the school hours and that the court would not condone any breach of this undertaking. The same year, during the Gujarat earthquake, a number of children paid a heavy price for the negligence of school authorities. In Ghodasar, 32 children were buried alive when the poorly constructed school building collapsed and came down like a pack of cards. An Ahmedabad-based consumer group, Consumer Education and Research Centre, recently began the process by writing to the Gujarat Education Minister on the need for all schools in Gujarat to install fire safety devices. Pointing out that 60 per cent of the schools in Gujarat did not have any fire safety device or fire protection arrangement, the consumer group said the lives of about 20 lakh students in the state were at stake for the want of fire safety devices, poor electric wiring and unsafe electrical installations, improper sanitation, poor maintenance of school buildings and the attached canteens. The consumer group brought out another important aspect: the need for proper inspection of schools in Gujarat for their safety. The earthquake in 2001 damaged many school buildings in the state. Except some touching up
and white washing, the condition of the buildings remains the same; the
ruptured electric wires could trigger fire in the buildings, the CERC
said. Consumer groups, parents' bodies and citizens associations in the
country should now start a movement for safer schools. |
