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KARACHI, Oct 9: A contingency plan for the city, aimed at meeting any eventuality in the wake of regional situation, is being given a final shape with an emphasis to impart civil defence training to public and induct/enrol them as volunteers to act as second-line force in any emergency scenario.
The two-month-old city government which is already grappled with numerous issues, such as amalgamation of as many as 13 provincial government departments, has, however, succeeded in reactivating its warden posts by designating the city nazim, Naimatullah Khan as chief warden, naib nazim as deputy chief warden and 18 town nazims as divisional wardens and 178 union councils’ nazims as group wardens.
The group wardens (UC nazims) have been given the task of imparting civil defence training to the people of their respective constituencies with the cooperation of the city government’s civil defence officials.
According to city government’s district officer (General Administration), Lt-Col (Retd) Ehteshamuddin, under whose jurisdiction comes the fire-fighting and civil defence departments, his department would facilitate the group wardens in providing the required civil defence training.
He said as a part of civil defence training, volunteers would be trained in rescuing and evacuation operation, removal of debris and provision of first-aid.
About the civil defence department which prior to introduction of local government’s devolution plan used to come under the provincial home department and is now a part of the city government, he said the total strength of the officials of department for Karachi is only 60 with just three grade 17 officials.
Asked what should be the number of civil defence volunteers in a city like Karachi whose population has soared over 13 million, he said as per international standards 780 volunteers be trained or made available per 100,000 population which means that the city should have over 100,000 civil defence volunteers who could act as rescue force.
He said that with a view to creating awareness among the masses, the city government will arrange a demonstration of fire brigade/civil defence departments at city level in a week or so.
FIRE TENDERS: Asked if the city government’s fire bridge department is prepared to meet any eventuality or any act of sabotage, he said he had already convened a meeting to have a coordination among all concerned departments and agencies in this regard.
The meeting which was participated in by officials of Army, Navy, KPT, KDA, KBCA, Pakistan Steel, Traffic Police and Pakistan Railways took a number of measures relating to dispatching of fire tenders in case fire erupts at more than one place.
In addition, other precautionary measures for the city’s oil installations and the role of oil tankers associations in this were discussed in threadbare at the meeting, he said, adding since the oil installations are of utmost importance, the provincial home department was also taking preemptive measures at its own level.
Asked about the number of fire tenders, Col Ehtesham said that the city government’s fire department, at present, has 40 operational fire tenders, one snorkel and a rescue van with 1100 manpower.
The number of fire stations in the city which was only 13 about six months back has now been increased to 19 by setting up six new fire stations at Safari Park, Boat Basin, Old Sabzi Mandi, Mauripur’s new truck stand and National Highway, near Pakistan Machine Tool Factory, he added.
