The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has decided to crack down on buildings that have glass facades.Henceforth the civic body would allow only those buildings to have glass facades which can be dismantled.
The BMC's move comes after two fire accidents where the fire brigade personnel found that the buildings with glass facades were a death trap as there were no openings given for ventilation.The fire brigade even found it difficult to douse the fires.The first case was on April 8,last year when a fire at Diamond Square building in Kalina took a long time to extinguish.The second one occurred on September 7,when flames at a building in Bandra Kurla complex were controlled with great difficulty.In the second case a few firemen even reportedly sustained injuries in dousing the fire as they had to break the glass panels in order to control the fire.
The building proposal department of the BMC that frames norms and gives permissions to builders has now been asked by municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte to draw up strict guidelines on facades of buildings.
Under the new guidelines that are going to be worked out,only if a building having a glass façade incorporates the new changes would it be given a no-objection certificate.
The BMC will also ensure that the existing buildings which have glass facades carry out structural changes in them.
According to the new rules the buildings would have to open up a certain portion of their glass facades and replace the existing facades with ones that can be dismantled.
While Mumbai fire brigade officials were not available for comment,former chief fire officer Kiran Kadam said that those offices which have used glass facades are playing with the lives of the employees working in it."These people do it for beautification but what they don't realise is that once a fire breaks out the smoke will not find any outlet to escape as the facades are shut due to the use of ACs.So the smoke will cause major casualties,"Kadam said.While welcoming the BMC move,he said that he was in favour of complete removal of all glass facades in Mumbai as even open spaces in the glass facades were not enough and they needed to be removed.
