Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, May 11
Fire in the multi storied state secretariat building Visvesvaraya Bhavan was extinguished after over eight hours of fighting with the help of 50 fire fighting tenders on Wednesday evening.
Director general of fire services, Shobha Ahotkar, said fire fighters from Patna, neighbouring districts, NTPC, Barh and Patna airport were pressed into service to extinguish fire which had spread to all wings from third to seven floors of the building on Bailey Road.
DG regretted standard operating procedures were not followed as the electric wires in the building were outdated, fire fighting equipment were non-functional.
Ms Ahotkar said local police did not react to the fire fighting operations and it’s personnel reached quite late. Even SP of Patna reached much delayed, though as DG she had reached with her team within a minute of getting information.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar visited the fire site with senior officers of public works department and inquired about the possible reasons of fire.
The building houses several important engineering and technical departments, including road construction, buildings construction, rural works, rural development, science and technology and transport departments.
Chambers of half a dozen ministers and principal secretaries were gutted in the massive fire.
