Fire-hit SDF Building back in business

KOLKATA: It was business as usual at SDF Building in Sector V on Thursday, barely 24 hours after a fire broke out at an animation production centre on the second floor of the east wing. It will, however, take more than a week for DQ Entertainment International Ltd, the seat of fire, to get back on track.

“Our main concern is about the CPUs. The water sprayed to douse the fire seems to have damaged the CPUs that are used for production work.We are planning to temporarily relocate to our office at a nearby building and expect to get things normalize here in the next 10 to 15 days,” said Chiranjib Rudra, consultant of the animation company.
Power supply at the company is expected to resume within a few days. On Thursday, the employees were seen cleaning up the office premises and drying the computers in the sun.
At other IT firms housed in the building, things were more or less normal on Thursday. “Two of our CPUs are out of order. Otherwise, it was just another business day for us,” said Ayan Bhattacharya, an employee of an IT company on the second floor.
According to employees working in the building, the overall fire-safety arrangement needs to be thoroughly checked to prevent a rerun. “A minor fire had broken out inside one of the offices here last year. The building authorities should thoroughly look into its fire-safety arrangement as over 6,000 lives working in 100 companies are at stake,” said an IT employee working in SDF building.
Webel authorities said that there would be no compromise on the safety and quality control issues of SDF Building and that all necessary steps would be taken to ensure its fire-safety arrangements. Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA) will be preparing a report on the overall fire-safety status of SDF Building.