Staff Correspondent
Port Blair, Dec 07: Firemen who are the first responders during every disaster are going through a very low and undignified phase of their career at Port Blair. These men, who had joined Fire Services with an aim to serve the society and save people during any disaster, are presently asked to clean septic tank, wash water tanks and to water, decorative plants, for which the Police Department can easily hire Sweepers and DRMs.
Recently a Fire Tender was sent to Police Station Aberdeen to clean the septic tank, when a few firemen refused to clean it, a few sweeper from PBMC were brought for this task but still water was supplied by Andaman and Nicobar Fire Service and Fire Tenders of Fire Service was used to clean the Septic Tank.
Not only this, on November 30, a Fire Tender and few firemen were sent to clean both the overhead and underground water tanks of Senior Police Officers’ quarter at Chakkargaon. Andaman Sheekha has photographic evidence of such unwanted duties assigned to firemen.
Andaman Sheekha also has videos, which show that fire men were sent to water, recently planted, plants infront of CID office of Port Blair in several occasions.
“The problem is that such jobs bring the morale of Fire Service Jawans down. Moreover, if the fire tender is kept busy in cleaning and washing job then how can someone keep the Fire Tenders ready for responding to any emergency? If there is a fire call during watering plants, the fire tender will have to go to some water source first for refill and only then it can go for attending fire call. During any disaster even 15 minutes delay could be dangerous,” said a fireman who doesn’t want his name to be quoted.
