Firestarter: Audit flags gross fire safety violations at Kozhikode's govt drug warehouse

Kozhikode: While the Leader of the Opposition V D Satheesan raised suspicion over frequent fire accidents at the warehouses of Kerala Medical Services Corporation Limited (KMSCL), the fact is the state government's drug godowns are tinderboxes waiting for a spark with few fire safety features. KMSCL is the state government's procurement agency for all essential drugs and equipment.

On May 9, a day before a fire gutted the KMSCL's district drug godown in Kollam, the Kozhikode Fire Officer conducted a fire audit at KMSCL's Kozhikode District warehouse and found the three-storey building is ill-equipped to fight a fire breakout. "It has just 19 fire extinguishers which are enough for a 10,000 sq ft building. But this godown has an area of 28,271 sq ft spread over three floors," said C P Gireesh, Fire and Safety Officer of Perambra Fire Station.

For the past six years, KMSCL has been running its Kozhikode district drug godown from the rented building at Naduvannur without a no-objection certificate from the Fire and Rescue Department.

The recent fire audit found that the warehouse has cotton and chemicals worth Rs 8 crore, apart from two cold storages.

According to the National Building Code (NBC), the three-storey warehouse should have water tanks on upper and underground levels, an automatic sprinkler system, and wet and dry risers, which will help firefighters access water on all floors when a fire breaks out. "They have set up no such facilities though we have served notices to KMSCL after the annual fire audits in 2019 and 2020," said the officer.

On Tuesday (May 23), a firefighter died while trying to douse the fire at KMSCL's Thiruvananthapuram district drug godown at Thumba. The single-storey building next to the main warehouse stored bleaching powder, washing soda, surgical spirit, chloroxylenol, chlorhexidine hand rub, calamine lotion, and turpentine liniment.

KMSCL puts the onus on building owner

KMSCL district warehouse manager M A Baiju said the district office tries to implement the recommendations of the Fire Department within its means. "Every year we request a fire safety audit from the Fire and Safety Department," he said. "We try to arrange the safety measures according to the report from them. But we have our limitations. The building owner and the higher authorities should do the rest," he said. Baiju said he got the report of the May 9 audit on Tuesday.

Warehouse has a rent of Rs 6 lakh/ month

In 2012, the government allocated Rs 5 crore to build the district drug warehouse in Kozhikode but it is yet to assign a plot for the project. So KMSCL pays nearly Rs 6 lakh per month as rent for the building at Karuvannur.