Residents of Greater Noida demand another fire station

Greater Noida: The residents of Greater Noida West are angry and exhausted, demanding the setting up of more fire stations in the area. But their demand has not yet been met, even though the residents have raised this issue with the Greater Noida Authority several times. Currently, there is only one fire station in Ecotech 3, Greater Noida West.  

The main problem is that the distance between societies and the fire station is more than 10 km. The residents of the society said that on most occasions it would take the fire fighting team around 45 minutes to reach the spot where fire has occurred. They alleged that owing to the distance, it takes a  minimum of 20 minutes for the fire safety officials to reach the incident spot. Moreover, in case of traffic snarls, which is very often, things get much more difficult. 

In the aftermath of a recent fire incident in the basement of Shri Radha Sky Garden in October 2021, residents allege that the fire fighting team came 45 minutes after the fire broke out.

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Gaurav Patel, a resident of Shri Radha society, has regularly raised the issue with the authority. Says he, "This is not just the problem of our society, other societies are also facing the same issue. On that night, the residents were angry because the fire fighting team came after 45 minutes. They too are not to be blamed as the station is 11 km away from our society."

Recently, a fire broke out at a showroom inside the Gaur City Mall in Greater Noida around 10 am on January 12, 2022. Mahaveer Thusoo, a resident of Gaur City 2, 14th Avenue says, "The incident at Gaur Mall was covered by the fire safety team of the mall. If we had waited for the fire station to act, then the situation could have gone worse. There are a very high number of societies in Greater Noida, so authorities should provide 2 or 3 fire stations in the diameter of 2 or 3 km."

Manish Kumar, a resident of Ecovillage 2 and vice president of NEFOWA says, "We gave a proposal to the Authority that one more fire station should be installed in sector 16 B or Ecotech 12.  In Ecotech, there are 12 societies, along with industries that have their own requirement of fire tender. It takes a lot of time to reach the societies located on the other side of the 130-meter road. Moreover, to reach Gaur City 1 and 2, the fire team would need to take a longer route towards NH24 because the roundabout is closed, which adds extra kilometers."

He adds," The ladder of the fire tender is not long enough and would hardly reach the 4th or 5th floor. Greater Noida has mostly high rise residential societies. The authorities must address this aspect of the problem as well."