Good news for citizens. The untrained daily wagers attached with Fire and Emergency Services department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation will be provided with some basic fire and emergency operation training increasing their utility during fire fighting operations. TOI had reported on October 20, 2009, how NMC was endangering lives and property by putting untrained men to fight fires.
Taking note of the report, municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta called an emergency meeting of health and fire departments. The civic chief directed them to provide the daily wagers basic fire fighting training. Gupta confirmed this development to TOI and said that the fire department was facing a manpower crunch. He said even sanctioned posts in the department were not filled for decades.
The department had 411 sanctioned posts of which 100 were lying vacant. The posts were sanctioned years ago; many more are required today as city had grown. The sanctioned posts were for four stations while now the city has eight fire stations. The civic chief said that as a temporary measures, the corporation had spared 100 sanitary workers from among the 4,800 daily wagers attached to the NMC. Besides, 300 daily wagers were shifted to anti-encroachment squad and 100 to Octroi department.
"Initially, we deputed them in the fire department to help the firemen in times of crisis. But now we have decided to provide them basic fire fighting training," Gupta said. He said he had asked the CFO Chandrashekhar Jadhav to arrange a 15-day training programme for these workers. Gupta said the programme would be organised in association with National Civil Defence College. He said after training these workers could be inducted against vacancies in the department.