Congested Gulzar Houz a ticking time bomb

Hyderabad: With dozens of shops crammed side by side, the commercial-cum-residential area of Gulzar Houz is a disaster waiting to happen. Locals claim that no fire safety drills have ever been conducted in the area. From Madina market to Charminar, overhead electrical wires crisscross the locality, posing a serious threat.Most of the structures here were built during the Nizam era. According to locals, none of them are equipped with fire safety equipment."There has never been any fire awareness programme or an inspection. We have installed fire extinguishers on our own. However, they are not enough for emergencies like this. In the past, there were sparks in the transformers, but those were resolved on the spot. Sometimes, even street vendors use power from these panel boards, affecting voltage stability," said Dhanpat, a resident and a close aide of the victims.Purushottam Gupta, another resident and secretary of the cloth merchant association, said, "There are too many overhead wires in this already congested area of the Old City, which further worsens the situation. All our complaints have landed on deaf ears. Just a few days ago, there was another fire at Afzalgunj. Today, an entire family has been wiped out. It is high time that these incidents act as a lesson for those who otherwise act swiftly when they have to organise a large-scale event nearby."A senior official from the fire dept told TOI that while the dept regularly inspects high-rise buildings for the availability of fire safety equipment, inspecting nearly 40 lakh non-high-rises is a daunting task."Most of these houses were built several years ago and have narrow lanes, even inside the premises. Like in Sunday's accident, it was a shop — a place that could have had a smoke detector, a fire alarm, and a fire extinguisher. People must realise that a fire can break out anywhere, and preventive measures are everyone's responsibility," said Y Nagi Reddy, DG, fire services.