kolkata Confidential; No fire fighting

No fire fighting

When last year a major broke out at the iconic Stephen Court building in Kolkata,Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee had lambasted the then Left Front government for not giving due attention to the fire safety department. But it seems,hardly anything has changed after she became the chief minister of the state. Indeevar Pandey has been made principal secretary of the fire department,but he has also been bestowed with the duties of other two departments — home (personnel) and disaster management. Out of the three departments,Pandey spends most of the time discharging his duty as principal secretary home (personnel) and issues orders after orders of transfers of new postings of the officials. Sometimes he is even spotted at the chamber of principal secretary (disaster management). But he is hardly seen at the office of fire department. “The way the (fire) department is functioning is horrible. There is no vision,no planning,the department is heading towards a disaster,” said one official.