Several fire mishaps have occurred recently, gutting residential houses and rendering a number of families homeless in this chilly winter. The fire incidents were reported from Srinagar city and some other parts of Kashmir.
Being homeless is always a serious problem for any family and that too in winter. These homeless families have to then shift to their relatives’ or neighbours’ houses till they make their own arrangements. Mostly, they have to live in others’ houses in tough conditions. Then rehabilitation is also a big problem for them.
Their property gets damaged in the fire and some of the families are not able to save anything in the devastating fires. They are dependent on the financial assistance from others for survival and to get their houses reconstructed and getting themselves rehabilitated.
After being homeless, the affected people expect the government to provide them timely assistance. Most of them say that the assistance is insufficient. There is need to increase this assistance so that the fire victims are in a position to get themselves properly rehabilitated.
The society must also play its role to help the affected families, who require and want such a help. Be it relatives, neighbours or others, they too should come forward and help in whatever way they can. Society cannot remain indifferent towards the sufferings of the affected people.
If they are suffering today, who knows who else has to face same problems in future, and suffer. Equally important is to prevent occurrence of fire mishaps. Safety and preventive measures should be taken.
Breaking out of fire in a house not only affects the family living there but also those in their neighbourhood, whose houses also catch fire and are damaged. So all such things must be handled with care which cause fire. Mostly the cause of the fire is an electric short circuit.
The families must see to it that their houses are safe from short circuits and not vulnerable. If there is any problem, it should get rectified. The other causes of fire should also be taken care of. Efforts should be made to prevent the occurrence of such mishaps.
The fire and emergency services department too needs to be strengthened with more manpower and more fire stations. The fire fighters should be in a state of readiness particularly in winter to deal with such situations and they must have all the necessary equipments besides the stored water in tanks to extinguish the fire in time.
They should be allowed to do their job on the spot. There should not be any unnecessary interference into their working. At the moment, the immediate need is to help those affected by fire recently at both – government and non-government – levels. There should not be any delay in this.