CHENNAI: When a fire occurs, the fire department plays an important role in extinguishing the fire and engaging in rescue operations. In Chennai, there are 42 fire stations.
There are 12 fire stations in South Chennai, 11 in Central Chennai, 9 in North Chennai and 10 in the suburbs.
Each station has 45 fire trucks with capacities of 4,500, 8,000, 9,000 and 12 thousand litres. Water Board supplies water to these trucks.
Water will be supplied from the wells in the respective area. Board does not charge any fee for this. Water station taps were manually operated.
Last year, a ‘scanning’ machine was installed to prevent fraud and calculate how much water is going out. Based on this, a truckload of drinking water is provided to the public and the calculation is done.
But for fire trucks, no card is issued to be ‘scanned’. Every time, water is supplied to the fire trucks after consulting the waterworks engineer and getting his approval.
Due to this, there will be a problem in preventing the fire, the fire brigade says.
Firefighters said:
Fire trucks work as a life-saving tool. Until last year, water was supplied uninterruptedly at water stations. At present, they only ask the higher authorities and provide them.
During night time, many water stations do not supply water. If a fire occurs at night, the rescue operation will be problematic.
Realizing the importance of fire trucks, the Water Board should make arrangements for uninterrupted supply of water.
Thus they said.