NCPCR seeks report from State govt on hospital blaze

Kamla Nehru Hospital never bothered to take requisite fire NOC from BMC

Zafar Alam Khan | Bhopal

The maintenance of the hospital is with the Capital Project Authority (CPA), an agency that the CM has directed to be disbanded recently. There are also reports that the Kamla Nehru Hospital authorities failed to take the requisite fire NOC from BMC despite multiple notices and that the fire hydrants and extinguishers on the hospital campus were not working.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan might have called the tragic Kamla Nehru Hospital blaze incidence that claimed four infant lives on Monday a Criminal negligence and vowed for strict action against those guilty but the big question is would the guilty be ever traced?
Chouhan said on Tuesday, “This is negligence, criminal negligence. Whoever is guilty in this will not be spared.”
The question that why guilty could never be brought to book of law is raised because it is somewhere that a decision of chief minister himself seems to be responsible for this tragedy.
The maintenance of the hospital is with the Capital Project Authority (CPA), an agency that the CM has directed to be disbanded recently. There are also reports that the Kamla Nehru Hospital authorities failed to take the requisite fire no-objection certificate (NOC) from the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) despite multiple notices and that the fire hydrants and extinguishers on the hospital campus were not working.
The BMC fire officer said that the hospital had never applied for any fire NOC, and all the fire-fighting equipment in the hospital was in a defunct state.
Officials had said that the fire broke out in a general ward and a NICU ward. They said that 36 of the 40 infants in the ward were rescued while four, who were already in a critical condition, succumbed in the blaze.
Meanwhile, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has taken suo moto cognisance of the incident and asked the Madhya Pradesh government to constitute an inquiry into the circumstances leading to the deaths. The commission has written to the state chief secretary and asked him to furnish details on if the NOC granted to the hospital and the last fire safety audit conducted.
The NCPCR has sought a preliminary report on the incident within three days and a detailed report from the state government in 10 days.
The commission has directed that the inquiry team to be set up by the state government must have a senior administrative officer who should not be from the departments of health or medical education in order “to inquire into lapses in available equipment and facilities in SNCU.”
DG, Fire Services, has also been directed to look into lapses in “available fire prevention mechanism, fire exit, provision of detection, alarm and fire extinguishers etc.’’ A senior officer from PWD as well as a senior police officer not below the rank of an IG should be included as members of the inquiry committee, NCPCR has said.
The commission has sought details on the numbers of children affected due to this fire and information on hospitals to which infants have been shifted. It has also directed the state government that families of the deceased infants be provided with adequate compensation.