Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry has expressed grave concern on fire incident in Nisar Art Press Market at Chamberlane Road and urged the government to compensate the affected traders.

LCCI President Irfan Iqbal Sheikh said that government should announce compensation for the businessmen who have suffered huge losses and also urged the private sector to get fire insurance on their own. He urged the federal and provincial governments to ensure infrastructure development and installation of fire hydrants at those places of all market which are inaccessible for fire tenders.

He said that despite various fire incidents in the country in general and Lahore in particular during last one decade, no concrete measures had been taken.

He said that although it is the government's task to put hydrants in inaccessible market places but in case of financial constraints at government level, the private sector should also contribute. The fire incidents in the city have exposed the weaknesses in the system and there is an urgent need to rectify them on emergent basis, he said.

He said that the massive devastation caused by the huge fire could have been averted if the concerned government departments had performed their duties properly and ensured implementation of rules and regulations.

He said that Lahore and Karachi had attained the status of commercial hubs of the country but never ever due attention was given towards upgradation of fire-fighting equipment to control the situation in case of any such untoward incident.

He also stressed the need of launching awareness campaign to avoid fire incidents at business places causing heavy financial losses to the business community. He said that country had met dozens terrible fire incidents. In the most of cases, fire could easily be controlled but due to lack of fire fighting facilities and poor condition of fire tenders the situation remained out of control, he said.