KARACHI, March 27: As many as 30, out of a total 52 fire tenders of the city government’s civil defence and fire brigade department, are lying idle owing to shortage of funds, it was reliably learnt.

While a majority of the fire tenders are out of order, one is in the possession of the Ghotki district government which had borrowed it, along with its staff from the CDGK’s fire department during a visit of the president Pervez Musharraf to Ghotki about one-and-a-half year back.

Admitting that the CDGK’s civil defence and fire department is not prepared to meet any disaster or natural calamities, sources said the department has, at present, only 22 fire tenders in working condition while its 30 fire enders have either developed faults or require minor repair works.

These are lying idle as the department does not have sufficient funds to get them repaired, the sources said.

Isn’t it a joke that the CDGK’s civil defence and fire brigade department which is required to make fire fighting arrangements of a city having 14 million population has been provided with a meagre amount of Rs 5 million in the CDGK’s current year budget, an official of the department said.

Elaborating, he said on the one hand, there is a shortage of fire tenders and, on the other, there is a dearth of trained fire fighters and the staff could not be recruited owing to a long ban on jobs.

Besides, the number of fire stations in the city is only 20 for a population of over 14 million, whereas according to standardised rules, there should be one fire station for a population of every 100,000, the sources said, adding London with a population of 10m, has 100 fire stations.

The sources regretted that while the department is not fully equipped to meet any major disaster, the departments concerned, including the master plan department, have not ensured that the highrise buildings provide fire-fighting equipment and that there should be a separate pipeline exclusively for its use in case of a fire.

In this regard, he quoted the example of recently built 26-storied MCB head office on I.I. Chundrigar Road, saying that although it was mandatory for 30 fire tenders

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the building to have a helipad on its top floor so that in case a fire erupts in the building, fire could be extinguished with the help of fire-fighting helicopter because the CDGK’s fire brigade department has only one snorkel and which can be used for extinguishing fire in a 10-strory building.

Regarding the return of the fire tender from Ghotki town, DCO Karachi Fazalur Rehman has reportedly written a letter to the additional secretary local government to intervene into the matter and help getting back the fire tender from the Ghotki’s city government as the city district government had been facing shortage of fire tenders.

The fire tender was provided to the Nazim of Ghotki on the verbal instructions of a senior officer, as the Nazim is brother of former Sindh chief minister Sardar Ali Mohammad Mahar.

At Ghotki, the fire tender staff was not only ill-treated, but it was asked to leave the city after leaving the fire tender and it is since then the Ghotki district government is in the possession of the vehicle purchased at a cost of Rs 13.5 million.

Accusing politicians of misusing authority, sources said that even the incumbent provincial chief minister had borrowed two fire tenders from the CDGK for their use during the election campaign of the incumbent prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, in Tharparkar. The fire tenders were, however, returned to the CDGK after the electioneering campaign was over, they added.