IN a country of 950 million people, tragedies convert to tables overnight. The June 13 Uphaar cinema fire? Ah, yes: 100 injured, 60 dead. Forty four adults. Sixteen kids. Ex gratia: Rs 50,000 to relatives of adults, Rs 25,000 to kin of miners killed. Major tragedy. Minor recompense. Six months on, it will be minor recall. Most likely, amnesia. God's in his Heaven/Dinner's at seven/All's right with the world. Right?
Wrong. Not when there are 337 Uphaars, in the form of not-certified-fire-safe public buildings, waiting to happen in Delhi alone, as S.C. Vajpei, the ex-bureaucrat who laboured in vain to enforce fire safety laws in public buildings stringently, informs us. Not when the estimated 20 million Indians who frequent unsafe cinema halls risk being roasted to death everyday. Not when buildings like Ansals Towers (owned by the eponymous Rs 2,500 crore Croesuses that own Uphaar)-scene of the horrific fire some years ago that caused officegoers to jump to their deaths from the 10th floor to escape an incendiary fate--are allowed to function with impunity despite being listed 'unsafe' by the Fire Department. Not when 1,820 unlicensed nursing homes equipped creaking heavy duty medical equipment continue to operate in residential areas, overdrawing electricity from already overburdened power supply lines, increasing chances of a fire breaking out, putting patients' lives at risk. Not when only four of the city's discotheques are licensed fire-safe. And when most of the unlicensed others, usually in basement areas with single exits, usually with inflammable furnishings, usually sans smoke detector alarms, choc-a-block with inebriated youngsters, could short-circuit into the blazing Manila night club that claimed 120 lives not so long ago, anytime. And definitely NOT when 35 of the declared fire-unsafe buildings belong to a government that is supposed to ensure that no building should ever be so.
MCD (Municipal Corporation Delhi) Neros do fiddle while our Rome doth burn. No less than 15,000 fires 1996 through 1997, 23 of them on June 17 alone. Death tally: 398. Whole businesses wiped out. Whole families snuffed out.
Why? Because there are builders, babus and bribes. Uphaar makes for a good case study. The transformer that tragically terminated 60 lives should have been outside, not inside the building's basement. That transformer leaked the oil that sparked the fire that swept through the parking lot, set ablaze cars, set aflame ducts that spewed the smoke that snuffed out lives. Battery-operated exit lights had no batteries, cinema hall staff supposed to provide help had no training, the dual fire exit staircases supposed to be the escape routes did not exist: the only one staircase exited to the basement parking lot where the inferno was raging; the fire engines supposed to provide succour had no water, no ladders, to reach people trapped within. Besides, it arrived 45 minutes late. In short, everything that could go wrong, did.
How? Because there was a nexus operating. The cinema hall was given the temporary operating license despite gave charges of safety rule violations pending against it in court. The transformer was not relocated outside despite Delhi Fire Service directives to the contrary It let off sparks the morning of the disaster yet the cinema owners were allowed to conduct business as usual. Because someone allowed it to be that way.
And will probably allow it to be that way yet again. Secure in the knowledge that life is cheap and long, public memory short, in our part of the world. We cannot let that happen. Not in Delhi. Not in the rest of the country. Anupam, Savitri, Chanderlok, Virat: all the cinema halls singled out last week by sub-divisional magistrate J.K. Jain must be compelled to implement safety directives. High rise buildings, including those owned by the government, breaching fire safety regulations should be issued closure notices till such time as they set their house in order All public buildings should have untrammelled access routes that do not hinder fire fighting operations, battery-powered emergency lights, ladders, working fire-extinguishing equipment, staff trained in how to work that equipment, public address systems, regular fire drills that are the norm rather than the exception in other parts of the world, 'dry' (copper wound, resin not oil surrounded) transformers with proven easy access, enclosed within fireproofed boundary walls. Legislating laws alone will not be enough. We should also enforce observance of these laws. Bi-annual checks of public use buildings should be mandatory. Renewal of operating licenses should be contingent on their meeting stringent safety and fire hazard regulations. Stiff penalties should be imposed on defaulters. Municipal, police, fire safety departments should work not at cross purposes but in tandem with each other to ensure public safety is not imperiled. That would put paid to any passing-the-buck when a tragedy occurs. Public accountability is something public servants should get used to the idea of. Finally, fire safety should be accorded the priority status it deserves by making it figure in the state or concurrent lists of the Indian Constitution.
The laxity that laid waste lives in Delhi is endemic. It replicates itself a thousand times over across the length and breadth of this country To outlaw this criminal negligence, not ex-gratia, would be apt homage to the innocents that lost their lives that Black Friday.
