The inhabitants of Chandoosa in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district have accused the government of failing to fulfill their demand of establishing a fire and emergency service station in the area. “We have been urging the government from the last two decades to establish a fire station in the area, but nothing substantial has been done so far,” the residents said.
They said that Chandoosa comprises dozens of villages with thousands of population but has been deprived of this basic and fundamental need.
The residents said that the nearest fire station is at Kreeri and at the time of fire incident, they have to wait for hours for fire tenders to reach the spot.
They said that countless people have lost their property in fire incidents but they are unable to protect them due to no fire tender being available in their area.
“Two dozen shops and houses have been damaged in different fire incidents in the past two months in different villages of Kandi area. Fire and emergency department, which has a lot of equipment, cannot reach in time because the area is far from Kreeri as well as from Baramulla town,” a local, Nazir Ahmad, told Good Morning Kashmir.
“We have been demanding fire services for a long time but due to unknown reasons it has not been established in our area. We have knocked on the doors of every official in the past 20 years and everyone assured us, so we don’t understand who is stopping it,” Nazair said.
Ghulam Nabi Najar, a recent fire victim from Nowgam Kandi said that they had approached the successive dispensations for establishment of a fire service station at Chandoosa a number of times but to no avail.
“We visited the offices of every official, leaders of every political party, and all of them assured that they will help. However, days turned to months and months turned to years while the people are still where they are,” Najar said.
The residents appealed Director General Fire and Emergency Service to establish a fire service station in their area so that their genuine grievance was redressed.
