Mumbai:
In the wake of last month's devastating fire which killed five people at Mantralaya in Mumbai, a mock fire drill was conducted in the State Secretariat on Monday to gauge the administration's preparedness to evacuate people from the seven-storied building.
But glaring lapses were exposed at the mock drill. Fire engines came in 15 minutes after the evacuation despite being a five minute drive away, people strolled out of their offices even as the sirens blared, and there was a stampede-like situation within the secretariat, even as the clutter has supposedly been reduced.
Since the lifts were already brought down to the ground floor, the staff from each of the floor was taken to safety from different exit routes.
Each floor had a floor marshal who was assisted by a deputy floor marshal and an assistant floor marshal.
"They had a list of employees of each of the floors and after the staff was brought down, a head count was taken to check if anybody was left behind," sources added.
Map of the building including the position of the exit routes was displayed in each floor.
The Home Guards and personnel from the fire service, Mantralaya security and Mumbai police among others participated in the exercise, sources said.
"The civil defence, disaster management cell of the BMC and Pune-based Yashada have given us their observations regarding today's drill. We are analysing the observations so that we can bring about improvement when we conduct a surprise drill next time," sources added.
The exercise was the first of its kind in the 57-year-old building.
Sources said mock drills were conducted by the Public Works Department (PWD) department, which is in charge of the building's maintenance.
"Even we did not know about it. This is the first time that such an exercise was conducted when the staff was present," sources said.
Today, none of the ministers were present. Only few top bureaucrats like Housing Secretary Gautam Chaterjee, Water Resources Secretary Eknath Patil, Education Secretary J S Saharia, Relief and Rehabilitation Secretary Pravin Pardeshi who were present in their offices came down with the rest of the staff.
Since the staff was told in advance about today's drill, everybody was ready to leave even before 4 pm. But next time, it would be a surprise drill with no intimation given to anyone, they said.