Tamil Nadu Fire Services in for an organisational revamp

Bifurcation of Coimbatore zone, North-Western and Southern regions is underway to enable swift response to calls for rescue

To ensure speedy reaction in the event of fire and rescue calls and to ease administrative inconvenience, the Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services (TNFRS) Department is embarking on organisational restructuring.

Talking to The Hindu, Braj Kishore Ravi, Director General of Police (Fire Services) said, in the first phase, the Coimbatore Zone is being bifurcated with Salem as headquarters for a new zone. The new Salem Zone carves out Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri, Salem and Namakkal districts. Meanwhile, the Nilgiris, Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Erode will continue to remain in the Coimbatore Division.

In the subsequent phases, the North Western Region at Tiruchi is being bifurcated with a new headquarters coming up at Cuddalore and in the third phase, the Southern Region is being divided into two with a new headquarters coming up in Tirunelveli, Mr. Ravi said. Coimbatore Zone has nine districts, North Western Zone in Tiruchi and Southern Zone has ten districts each.

The new Zones at Salem in the first phase, Cuddalore and Tirunelveli in the subsequent phases will be headed by Deputy Directors and the North, North Western, Western and Southern Zones will be headed by Joint Directors. The Deputy Directors and Joint Directors will report to the Additional Director (Operations), Chennai.

Of this, the bifurcation of Coimbatore and Salem division are in final stages.

Joint Director of TNFRS, Coimbatore Zone, R. Sathyanarayan said travel between Coimbatore and Krishnagiri is 274 km, Dharmapuri is 228 km, Namakkal is 171 km and Salem is 168 km. On an average, 15 fire calls and 55 rescue calls in a month are being handled by 90 stations in the nine districts. Normally it takes four to five hours to reach these districts in the event of any major fire accident or rescue calls, hence the decision to bifurcate the zone.

Mr. Sathyanarayan said about 1,000 odd fire men are being trained at various places in the State and of which 150 each are being trained at Coimbatore and Salem and these fire men will be inducted into the force very shortly. A 54 m tall snorkel is being procured for Tiruppur and the process is in final stages. Mr. Ravi said that 50 drones have been procured for the TNFRS and men have been trained to operate the drones to assess or ascertain the seat of Fire.