TODAYS FIRE IN LUDHIANA IS VERY SERIOUS FUTURE ALERT

GOVERNMENT MUST GIVE FULL POWERS TO ARCHITECTS FOR SMART CITIES AND SAFE BUILDINGS
(By Ar Sanjay Goel, Director, Ludhiana Smart City Ltd, Chairman-Punjab Architects)
There are majority non residential (industrial, commercial, institutional, complexes) buildings in unplanned city of Ludhiana having no proper designing and fire safety norms. Being industrial hub and having majority mixed land use areas the city famous for its hosiery is very risky from fire and earthquake safety point of view. First building bye-laws are not updated regularly by government and secondly they are not implemented fully by citizens. Congested buildings in congested lanes may face any big accident any time.
Why buildings are given NOCs or allowed to occupy/use in the absence of all prevailing building rules and bylaws?
Why architects are not given their due to plan, design, supervise and issue occupancy certificate by Government?
We need single development agency in city in place of multi-agencies (Corporation, improvement trust, GLADA, PSIEC, HOUSEFED etc) for fast and accurate development of city.
The strict implementation of a Fire Safety Plan helps to assure effective utilization of life safety features in a building, to protect people from fire hazards. The required Fire Safety Plan should be designed to suit the resources of each individual building or complex of buildings.
Fire Safety Plans are intended to assist the owner of a building with the basic essentials for the safety of all occupants, to ensure an orderly evacuation at the time of an emergency and to provide a maximum degree of flexibility to achieve the necessary fire safety for the building.
This is the time for Government to be very strict. We want our ordinary/practical city first and smart city later !!