All hospitals, clinics under fire safety scanner

KOLKATA: The Mamata Banerjee government, which has vowed to get to the bottom of AMRI hospital's role in creating an inferno on Friday, may set up a separate committee to probe how the hospital managed to hoodwink the fire services department for years to set up a pharmacy, a store containing highly inflammable objects and chemicals and a diagnostic centre in the basement that was meant only for parking cars.
On Saturday, fire services minister Javed Khan held a meeting with senior officials, including department secretary Indevar Pandey, director-general (DG), fire services, D P Tarania, ADG (fire services) D P Biswas, and director, fire services Gopal Bhattacharya, to discuss the modalities of the five-member committee for fire safety and audit that will start functioning from Monday. It will begin functioning from Monday and go around inspecting hospitals and nursing homes and start by looking out for violation of fire safety norms.
At the end of the meeting, Khan told reporters at Writers' Buildings, "We shall meticulously go through the legal procedure, starting with the FIR, so that the miscreants can't get away. The CM may form a separate committee to inquire into the process of crowding the basement and filling it with inflammable objects." The probe will be conducted within the purview of the Clinical Establishment Act, 1954, as amended in 2010. The amended Act has become extremely stringent and it would be impossible to escape from its clutches, chief secretary Samar Ghosh said. The state government has cancelled AMRI's licence by invoking the Act, the chief secretary said. He said the government, if needed, would probe its own role since the director of medical education (DME) has been a board member of the hospital management. The DME, he said, had nothing much to do with the functioning as his job was just to attend the board meeting.
Khan on Saturday named four members of the fire safety and audit committee, including additional-director-general (fire safety) Debapriya Biswas as the chairman, B M Sen, a former director of fire services, and fire services officials Anindo Chatterjee and Sudipto Sarkar. The notification for setting up the committee was issued during the day, but the government is yet to select the fifth member.
The committee members will start inspecting private hospitals and nursing homes and submit its report to the secretary, who, in turn will compile a report to be submitted to the chief minister. The minister said, "The committee will not victimize anybody, but it will not spare anyone who flouts fire safety norms." The committee report will mention in its report whenever anyone tries to influence the members to gloss over any violation. A daily report will be put up on the government website so that the public can access the cases of violation for themselves.
The minister said the ambit of the committee will be gradually extended to the districts. The effort will begin with the neighbouring Howrah. Sanghamitra Ghosh, districts magistrate (DM) said, "A team of district officials will inspect mushrooming nursing homes and shopping malls in Howrah. They will also visit schools where mid-day meals are cooked to make sure that fire safety norms were not being flouted. Howrah's mayor Mamta Jaiswal echoed, "The high-rises in Howrah are the biggest threat to fire safety."