50 years later, air raid sirens in Mumbai lie unattended

The APR system was introduced to send out early warnings of a possible air strike, for which 306 sirens were installed in Mumbai. At present, while 168 sirens are lying in the dust, the remaining 138 have become mere showpieces. The last time these sirens were used to warn citizens was during the 1965-71 war with Pakistan. Since then, these have largely remained silent and have blared only during tests conducted to check they are still functional.

In all, 492 sirens can be found across Maharashtra, including the 168 defunt ones. Besides Mumbai, sirens are installed in districts like Uran, Tarapur, Nasik, Pune and Thane, which includes Navi Mumbai.

Officials in the Directorate General (DG) of Civil Defence Force and Homeguard headquarters, under the Maharashtra government, said that a year ago, a technology institute based in Karnataka had offered to get them working again. The institute was also ready to take the responsibility of maintaining these sirens but the talks did not bear fruit, as it asked for more than a crore for the project.

Currently, the DG headquarters spends over Rs 14 lakh every year to maintain the sirens installed at government offices, schools, colleges and other institutions. Till 2014, sirens could also be found at private buildings. But either due to the demolition of these buildings or the high electricity bills that the DG headquarters had to pay, 168 sirens were removed from private buildings.

“As electricity is needed to start the sirens, electric metres were installed. But later we realised that owing to electricity theft from the meters, the bill amount started going way over the budget… more than a hundred sirens were removed at the same time. But the sirens placed over government institutions are still intact, as the state directly pays for the electric supply and bills are not generated in the name of the DG (Civil Defence Force and Homeguard),” said an official.

Sources said a senior official in the operation and store department of DG (Civil Defence Force and Homeguard) has been tasked to find out the condition of these sirens. He regularly sends out letters and seeks information from the electrical unit of the state PWD.

While these sirens were seen as an important component of the country’s civil defence system, the decrease in the threat perception of Mumbai has made the state look the other way over maintaining of these sirens, said officials.

Earlier, these sirens would be regularly tested, but no test has been conducted in last five years.

The sirens were tested in two ways. They were played with the help of a button installed in the control room of DG headquarters. But this stopped in 2004 as the technology was not upgraded and the engineers operating the sirens had little knowledge of the system used in the 1960s. The other way was for civil defence volunteers to visit the locations where sirens have been installed and individually operate the systems. But this was also stopped in 2014-15, as the DG headquarters stopped paying the volunteers.

Officials said the siren system, once known to be integral part of the security system, is on the verge of extinction. Talks are being held with MTNL and several technology institutes over the possible revival of this iconic ARP system, they added.

Sanjay Pandey, DG (Civil Defence Force and Homeguard) said, “We are trying to make the system operational.”