BMC appoints fire and life safety auditors for residential buildings

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will soon appoint fire and life safety auditors to carry out fire safety audits in residential buildings that are up to 32m in height or less than ten storeys to speed up construction approvals and ensure transparency in Mumbai. The BMC has decided to accord fire and life safety no-objection certificates (NOC) to 32m high residential buildings through fire and life safety auditors to speed up building construction approvals more transparently, as part of its ease-of-doing-business initiative, a senior civic official said. The Mumbai civic body has invited applications asking qualified personnel for the audit job. An official said the auditor, along with the fire safety consultant and architect, will ensure compliance with the Maharashtra Fire Prevention & Life Safety Measures Act, 2006, and other building bye-laws provisions at the time of construction. According to the codified fire safety requirements, the fire and life safety auditor will issue a fire safety compliance certificate in a prescribed format along with a schematic drawing showing multiple safety measures implemented. The auditor will also examine all active measures associated with fire and life safety given in the building and upload photographs or videos of the inspection and testing of fire-fighting installations and equipment with the time and date stamp, accompanying the compliance certificate, through the architect. It is the property owner or the cooperative housing society's responsibility to follow fire safety norms and submit an audit report, signed by a licensed fire expert, every six months certifying compliance to the chief fire officer under the Act. If there is no property owner or society, the renters will have to do it. The fire brigade found that most had failed to submit the audit report or keep fire safety equipment in recent fires. Image Source Also read: BMC readies SOP to impose fire service fees on buildings from July Also read: State fire department to issue NOCs for high rise buildings in Nagpur