Two Shops Gutted in A Major Fire At New Textile Market On Thursday.

Considered as the market hub of synthetic sarees and dress materials with an annual turnover exceeding Rs 3,500 crore, the 140-odd textile markets located on Ring Road, Umarwada and Salabatpure areas are poor enforcers of fire safety norms.

Thursday’s incident, wherein the dress materials and sarees worth Rs 2.5lakh were gutted in a major fire at two textile shops located on the top floor of the four-storeyed NTM market(first market to set-up multi-level car parking facility for the textile traders), has exposed the negligence of building organizers and Surat Municipal Corporation(SMC).

Experts said that the textile shops are disasters, waiting to happen. The synthetic dress materials and sarees stored in these textile shops are manufactured from the petro-products like crude oli. When a TOI team visited around 12 textile markets in Ring Road and Umarwada areas, there was no trace of any fire safety equipment. The textile traders at most of the markets said they owned only two bottles of fore extinguishers. A couple of well-known textile markets like JJ market and Millennium textile markets, which boats of adequate fire safety measures, face a quaint problem. Their fire safety equipment is rusted due to non-use or they are facing a water shortage.

SMC authorities were busy passing the bunk to guidelines for fire safety, as per Fire Safety Act. In the last few years SMC has either regularized the textile market by raising the impact fee or issuing the building use certificate (BUC). The authorities have not bothered to look into adequate fire safety measures in the markets. SMC’s chief fire officer (CFO) GM Kothwala said, “Any building whose height is less than 20 metres does not come under the fire safety act. The height of around 95 per cent of textile markets is below 20 metres.”