Sindh Government has the fullest realization that the firefighting system of Karachi has been the weakest in the entire country despite being the most populous city as the concerned authorities have started taking steps immediately to rectify the situation.
The assurance to strengthen the frail firefighting system of Karachi was given to audience of the 8thFire Safety & Security Convention-2018 organized by National Forum for Environment & Health (NFEH) in collaboration with the Fire Protection Association of Pakistan (FPAP).
The speakers lamented the situation that resources and equipment of Fire Brigade of Karachi had lately depleted to such an alarming extent that it could cover merely 10 per cent portion of the city.
Sindh Minister for Environment & Climate Change Taimur Talpur who was chief guest on the occasion assured audience of the convention that the Sindh government had the complete realization of the situation that much had still to be done to overcome serious deficiencies of the fire-fighting system of the city.
The provincial Environment minister said that Sindh government was fully cognizant about massive loss of human lives, damage to public, and private properties due to recurring fire incidents in the city as such tragedies did occur due to the weak firefighting system.
He said that relevant provincial authorities were fully aware of the fact that Sindh government was ultimately responsible for ensuring fire protection in the province.
He said that provincial government in this regard had started providing necessary equipment to fire brigades of different municipal agencies in the province to upgrade them.
Also speaking on the occasion, FPAP President Imran Taj said the field of fire protection had evolved and lately became a full-fledged professional discipline as resultantly a number of job opportunities had been created in corporate and industrial sectors related to the areas of Health, Environment, and Safety (HSE).
He said that study courses were being conducted both in the regional countries and globally to enhance the professional capabilities of the officials related to the field of HSE.
He said that industries and businesses in Pakistan had been lately compelled to establish their in-house HSE departments as without such an initiative they could not do trade and business with countries of the developed world.
Tariq Moen, FPAP Secretary, said that people and businesses in Pakistan should realize that the fire brigade was the last line of defense whenever someone had to deal with any fire emergency as otherwise commercial, residential, and industrial buildings had to have their own fire safety measures on a compulsory basis to timely tackle any fire incident at their premises.
He said the FPAP had lately surveyed eight multi-storied commercial buildings on I.I Chundrigar Road in Karachi as emergency exits had been found in only two buildings. The situation has been much better on Sharea Faisal where construction of buildings is relatively newer as up to 40 per cent high-rises on main thoroughfare of Karachi had emergency exits.
Fawad Barry, CEO of Haseen Habib Trading providing fire safety consultancy in the city, lamented that in the decades of 1990s, there were around 70 fire engines available to Karachi Fire Brigade whose number had now been reduced to just over a dozen.
He said that budget of millions of rupees had been spent in the provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to develop and upgrade Rescue 1122 service there but no such effort had been made in Karachi or elsewhere in Sindh.
He said that Fire Safety Provisions-2016 as part of the Building Code of Pakistan should be implemented in the entire country to make it lawfully binding upon constructors of new buildings to include all necessary fire safety measures for protection of lives of their occupants.
He said that Pakistan on an average had to suffer over 16,000 deaths, injuries to between 1,75,000 to 200,000 people, and property damage to the tune of Rs 04 billion every year alone on the account of fire emergencies as due safety measures had to be taken to prevent such tragedies in future.
He said that in a city like Karachi, a composite emergency helpline service should be initiated that could immediately dispatch police help, rescue personnel, or fire brigade to attend any sort of emergency in any part of Karachi.
Junaid Esmail Makda, president of Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry stressed on more efforts of Sindh govt , KMC for arrangements of fire protection.
NFEF President Naeem Qureshi, Engineer Nadeem Ashraf, project head of Fire Safety& Security Convention, Ahmad Al Fasfous, SFFECO Global & Hassan Qureshi, Head of Admin and Security, Consul General Switzerland also spoke on the occasion.
Some 30 companies, both local and multinationals, were given awards on the occasion for their excellent performance in the field of fire safety and security to ensure protection of their physical assets, material, and human resource alike.
