All commercial and high-rise buildings in Karachi have been facing serious safety threat as there are no laws or regulations put in place which could envisage setting up a central regulatory body for implementing mandatory regulations and measures to cope with any fire or similar life-threatening emergency situation.
Speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday, representatives of concerned non-governmental organisations said that at present only chapter 13 and 14 of Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations-2002 provide fire safety rules for buildings in the city but utility, relevance and effectiveness of these regulations had become too much limited.
Naeem Qureshi, president of National Forum for Environment and Health, said that presence of a number of agencies like provincial Disaster Management Authority and Civil Defence Organisation had not been leading the situation for improvement regarding adoption of fire safety measures by multi-story buildings. He said that situation regarding implementation of fire safety laws had been more or less same in the entire country where no central regulatory body existed to act for this cause as only exception was that of the federal capital where a proper safety law had been adopted in the form of "The Islamabad fire prevention and life safety Regulations-2010".
He said that a central fire safety authority should be established, which effectively dealt with all affairs related to safety of buildings in the city. Karachi had witnessed massive fire tragedies like recent hotel incident, Baldia factory, Timber Market, Bolton market, as on an average 30 incidents took place in Karachi in a year causing loss of lives and heavy damage to property and infrastructure wasting millions of rupees, but the city's authorities concerned had not been doing the needful.
Advocate M Nadeem A Shaikh, president of Justice Helpline, lamented that his proposed safety law titled "Karachi Fire Service Act-2015" some two years back, has yet to be adopted by the concerned governmental authorities. The Act proposed a central regulatory mechanism and fire service to deal with all fire safety and prevention measures for buildings built in all parts of the city irrespective of jurisdiction of the area whether it should be with any of the several land controlling agencies of Karachi.
He said that recent fire tragedy at a local hotel had once again highlighted the need that an effective fire safety law should be adopted for the city. He said that a regulatory mechanism should be put in place, which should envisage and implement a strict penal system for imposing fines and decreeing other punishments for owners of high-rise and commercial buildings, which didn't observe proper safety rules. The proposed central fire safety services and regulatory body should work under the KMC being sole municipal authority of the city.
Gulzar Memon, a retired chief engineer at Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, said that electrical inspectors should strictly do their visits and impose fines and punishments on the buildings whose owners didn't put in order their domestic electrical systems in order to prevent any fire and other disastrous emergency situation.