KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has summoned a senior government official after the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) submitted that it lacked manpower to operate all fire tenders and the department concerned had not responded to its letter yet.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar also directed the commissioner office to file a report whether a reference was sent to the registrar of the SHC for appointment of magistrates at district level as provided in the civil defence laws.

The bench directed the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) to come up with a final progress report about a mechanism for approval of building plan after obtaining no-objection certificates (NOCs) from the civil defence and fire departments till April 8.

When the bench took up for hearing a petition seeking implementation of Building Code of Pakistan and Fire Safety Provisions 2016 across the province, Assistant Commissioner Aijaz Rind filed a compliance report on behalf of the commissioner office and submitted that a helpline number (1299) had been made functional to meet any emergency.

SBCA director environment and building Irfan Haider informed the bench that in compliance with its earlier order, the SBCA director general had convened a meeting with an official of civil defence and he placed some viable proposals including a provision of fire exit door to meet any emergency in each flat site and commercial as well as industrial buildings.

SHC asks commissioner office to share details about appointment of magistrates as provided in civil defence laws

KMC’s Chief Fire Officer Mubin Ahmed said that he had also attended the meeting and submitted some proposals for incorporating in the approval letter for buildings. The bench directed the director-SBCA to come up with the final progress report on the next hearing.

The lawyer for KMC, Saeed Akhtar, submitted that 52 fire tenders had been provided by the federal government and 10 out of 30 damaged firefighting vehicles had been repaired.

The bench directed him to file a report about the remaining out-of-order fire tenders on the next date.

The counsel further argued that there was a lack of manpower to operate these vehicles and the metropolitan commissioner had already sent a letter to the local government secretary in this regard, but no action had so far been taken.

The bench asked the additional LG secretary to be in attendance on the next date of hearing along with latest update on the issue.

Focal person of civil defence Shahid Masroor said that as per civil defence laws, there was a provision of appointment of a magistrate at each district to take cognizance of non-compliance of the directions, but no such appointments had so far been made.

The assistant commissioner submitted that the appointments were to be made on the recommendations of the SHC chief justice.

The bench directed him to file a progress report whether the competent authority had forwarded a reference to the registrar of the SHC for appointment of magistrates.

Petitioner Nadeem Shaikh submitted that in view of the directive issued by the bench earlier, the task force for inspection of different buildings and implementation of fire safety laws had become functional at the district level.

The bench was further informed that the task force was conducting inspection vigilantly to make sure that all fire safety measures were being taken by all commercial and industrial establishments.

The bench directed the task force to continue it in future as well.

The lawyer for KMC said that there were 14 industrial zones in the provincial metropolis and 26 fire tenders had already been dedicated to such zones to meet any emergency.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2021