Preparedness in times of fire emergencies
Meg Iralu: January 2nd 2017 at 2.30 am, a house caught fire in New Ministers’ Hill Colony just below Cathedral church. The house was a Govt Quarter presently occupied by a class 1 gazetted officer who mostly stays alone and when the incident took place he was out of station. The quarter was old more than 18 years without any form of repairing till date. The reason for the fire is poor connectivity of power cables using the old system as still found in most old houses of 90s. The moment the fire started cracking over the tin roof my brother hearing the sound, got up and alerted the neighbours and we around more than 10 guys including all families got to work extinguishing most of fire by breaking all the window glasses and breaking the doors. Though most of the house was burned out with everything inside of it and luckily there was no gas cylinder, no one was injured and it is also found no valuable documents was keep there by the house owner later. Some points to be noted here:1. On the New Year day (still morning) when the state and the whole country itself was in the mood of celebration, where countless and undesired incidents are sure bound to arise/happen, why was the emergency no. 100 not working? In the capital of India, New Delhi, cops remain more alert on festivals days and there is not a single day holiday for even officer of CISF, BSF, NAVY etc. who know well that criminals always take advantages of those situations.
2. Why is the Govt of Nagaland and even the officers who are allocated quarters not maintaining these public properties...like by repairing those floors that are made of woods, walls, electricity switches, compound of plastered cements, gate, garages, power cable lines of current and landline, water taps etc, and where most officers and their families do not even care with that irritating excuse of the said property/problem been that of Govt duty. Not only that even after their retirement, some try to buy away their living quarters, vehicle (before the period of condemnation) and take away as much profit from the Govt in the form of applications, bribery, political backings, their status etc. I am saying all this because I am a witness and have seen the sincerity of my dad and uncles leaving behind good examples to their juniors before they leave the office. Aren't these corrupted officers not ashamed being public servants?
3. We all know Kohima is a windy area and houses in Porter Land, Midland, Naga Bazaar, Choto Bosti etc where the neighbour of that house which caught fire is not only at risk but the whole colony itself too. And we hardly find even portable fire extinguisher cylinder in households. Every year there are always cases of fire accident all over Nagaland and the disaster management team. Nagaland is not equipped when it comes to handling real situations but expert at shouting and posting on their websites, on social media pages etc. No! That is not enough when they educate others but can't do their job properly.
4. We are lucky that we have sufficient waters and today morning already drained out more than 6000 litres from our reserved water tank and we thank those guys and our neighbours who are ever ready helpful and together we did most of the job by extinguishing that quarter in 2 hours and even before those fire brigade trucks arrived. Of course! They arrived after mistaking the location first by going up toward Tourist Lodge and then coming down where we were waiting for them. They came with 3 truckloads of water, with around 30 personnel, insufficient torch lights and finished the job perfectly and we thanked them for being awake and active even during those dead hours and may God bless them.
5. This is the 2nd incident in New Ministers’ Hill Colony where another government quarter caught fire due to old and weak cable connectivity of electricity. The first took place last year, just below Circuit House nearly killing one resident when he woke up in the middle of the night and alerted the neighbours. It is high time the Govt of Nagaland took step by informing the civil servants to repair their own allocated quarter with their own money. A simple ordinary citizen like me is fed up of hearing news of totally depending on the government for job, for scheme, for protection, those peoples setting up organisation with government money, charity through government money, private cottage industries through government money, setting up own personal business with government help, those student leaders and other organisation leaders keep begging the government for money and this that always etc. Yes! we are poor people but we are not beggars, we keep our integrity and we don't beg the government to do this and that but a citizen in accordance to the constitution has every right to point out the flaws of the ruling Government and their cronies and any organisations which say they are working for public but going in the wrong direction. A new year has begun giving the people a new hope for themselves and for others and toward the government...Let’s wait and see what the new year has good things in store for us, the Nagas.
