Mohali fire station battles staff crunch

Akash Ghai
Tribune News Service
Mohali, October 25

While Diwali, the festival of lights, is round the corner, the Mohali fire station is grappling with staff shortage.

The fire station has been working without any fire station officer. According to a senior official of the department, who spoke on condition of anonymity, there were two sanctioned posts of fire station officer and the Mohali fire station has none. Similarly, there is no assistant divisional fire officer, while the department has one sanctioned post here. Even the number of firemen is much below the sanctioned posts.

“Here, we have just 24 firemen while the number of the sanctioned posts is 80. Similarly, against the 24 sanctioned posts of leading fireman, we have just one such official,” said the official.

The story is no different when it comes to drivers and sub-fire officers. “We have just 10 drivers and four sub-fire officers. The number of sanctioned posts for both drivers and sub-fire officers is 24 and 10, respectively”, said the official.

He said one could well imagine their situation when it comes to managing the affairs, including dealing with emergency situations, with such a thin staff. “Despite all odds, we are ready to deal with any eventuality,” said the fire official.

2 more fire stations soon

Under the plan of the Mohali Municipal Corporation, two more fire stations will be constructed in Sector 78 and Sector 65 soon. At present, the fire station is located in the Industrial Area near the Phase 1 police station here.

No dearth of equipment

While the department is facing severe staff crunch, it is said to be fully equipped when it comes to fire-fighting paraphernalia. The local fire station has 14 vehicles equipped with various advanced fire-fighting systems. “We have one Bronto Skylift, which could go up to a height of 54 metres to douse flames in any high-rise building. Other vehicles include one rescue fire tender, which is equipped with cutters, 8 fire tenders, including four multipurpose tenders, one water bowser (20,000 litres), one fire jeep, one Bolero and two motorcycles to deal with any emergency in the area.

Fact file

According to a senior official of the department, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, there were two sanctioned posts of fire station officer and the Mohali fire station has none. Similarly, there is no assistant divisional fire officer, while the department has one sanctioned post here. Even the number of firemen is much below the sanctioned posts.