Public help sought to make dist free from fire mishaps

Visakhapatnam: Collector V Seshadri has appealed to the people to extend cooperation to the district administration in its endeavour to make the district free from fire mishaps by maintaining safety standards in multi-storey apartments, commercial complexes, shopping malls, star hotels, corporate hospitals and other residential dwellings.

Mr Seshadri was addressing a meeting organised on the occasion of National Fire Service Day here on Sunday after launching the week-long celebrations. He asked the fire brigade to be alert to face any eventuality in the fast growing city. The district administration was trying for allocation of government sites to all the three 'Fire Brigade Centres' in the city for constructing own buildings with all facilities, he said.

District Fire Officer Ch. Krupavaram said a week-long action plan has been chalked out to organise various programmes to educate public with the theme 'Fire is fire� friend or foe, we decide'. "Safety standards should be compulsorily maintained at multiplexes, corporate hospitals, cinema halls, star hotels, apartments, shopping malls and other high-rise buildings," he said. The Collector released posters, pamphlets and brochures brought out by the government on the occasion. Joint Collector Praveen Kumar and ACP Venkata Rao were present.

Elsewhere, Municipal Commissioner MV Satyanarayana flagged off a safety rally on the Rama Krishna Beach Road to mark the occasion of National Fire Service Day.A Addressing the participants, Mr. Satyanarayana emphasised the need to create awareness on 'fire mishaps and safety measures' among the public. The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) would organise awareness programmes during the week-long celebrations in the city limits, he said.

He underscored the need for managements of multi-storey commercial complexes, star hotels, shopping malls, cinema theatres, schools, corporate colleges and apartments to create awareness on how to come out from mishaps, besides maintaining full-fledged safety measures. The households were asked to be alert while using LPG stoves and careful about electrical short-circuit.

Divisional fire officer Narasimham, chief city planner S Balakrishna, chief medical officer Dr PV Ramana Murty, director of sports Y Srinivasa Rao, DCP D Venkata Subbaiah, representative of Chaitanya Techno School Sai Sankar and students participated in the rally.