Many high rise buildings in our country in general and Mumbai in particular do not follow fire safety guidelines and the Maker Towers tragedy which claimed two lives is really unfortunate. Twenty two people had died due to a fire blaze that occurred in a hospital at Bhubaneshwar few days back. However, nobody seems to really care as human life has lost value in an overpopulated country like ours which truly is sad and a shame.
Corruption rules roost in our country and palms are greased to get safety norms certificate from authorities. Infrastructure sector in our country is controlled by land sharks and mafia who do not follow safety guidelines to save on cost to mint profits. It’s time for the authorities to get strict and impose penalties so that such sad events don’t occur in future. Residents too should become alert as their own lives are at stake by conducting fire audits at regular intervals for their own wellbeing. The government too needs to set their house in order to check system failure which certifies building through corruption even when they don’t comply to most rules.
S.N. Kabra
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
