In the space of two days, thirty-five people have died in a Rajkot amusement park fire, including many children, and seven newborns in a Delhi hospital fire. The hospital, ironically, specialises in baby care. These are heartbreaking statistics. They reveal a tale of negligence that exists almost everywhere in India. In the amusement park incident, there was fire-fighting equipment, but it had not even been unpacked and kept at accessible places.
This reveals two facts – first, that management of such places where people gather in large numbers is not professionally capable of doing their job and, second, government agencies assigned with preparing and enforcing safety protocol are being negligent in performing the task. Such issues are ‘managed, quite obviously, with a little bit of under the table transactions. How much easier that is than taking on the trouble of anticipating and preparing for all sorts of contingencies! It is only after the incident that the shortcomings are counted. This will continue for as long as the negligent officials are not taken strictly to task.
It is true that integrating safety features at such places does not come cheap. It begins with design and implementation, installation of the latest equipment, then dynamic maintenance of the facilities by properly trained personnel. All of these tasks have to be supervised by capable managers. Many of these elements are ignored because they cut into the profits or are considered loss-making expenses.
If India is to become a developed country, it cannot afford to have such ‘kaam-chalau’ enterprises. The truth is that better planning can substantially reduce the above-mentioned costs. This is where the role of government comes in – it should not only update and enforce regulations, its agencies can also provide free or inexpensive consultancy to such enterprises on disaster prevention. The evacuation process in case of emergencies such as fires, earthquakes, heavy rainfall, etc., should be worked out everywhere and regular drills held to ensure everybody knows what to do if there is a problem.
Even the small businesses should begin inducting professionally qualified managers into their hierarchy so that they function as they should. The many institutions churning out management graduates should ensure that the training being provided includes an awareness of such issues. The response to tragedies emanating from negligence should not just be reduced to the blame game; a restructured approach at the institutional level is needed if change is to come about.
