On June 2, a health inspector from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi visited Flourish Stay B&B in Hauz Rani, Malviya Nagar. He filed his inspection report, recommended a licence, and left. The next day, a fire tore through the building and killed 23 people. MCD has now terminated assistant public health inspector Prince Mann. The official order states he conducted an inspection that was “perfunctory and superficial,” that he “wilfully ignored patent discrepancies” between the submitted documents and what actually existed on the ground, and that he recommended a licence based on a “false and misleading” report. In a separate order, the deputy health officer overseeing the South Zone, Dr Sanjay Sinha, has been transferred and attached to MCD headquarters on administrative grounds. What existed on the ground was this: a premises permitted to run six rooms was operating at least 25 across four floors, a basement, and the roof. There was no fire exit. The restaurant on the ground floor held a tea-and-snacks licence – a category meant only for small establishments selling pre-cooked items, with limited provision for warming food and seating. That licence had expired on March 31, two months before the fire. Four gas cylinders were later found on the premises. The owner applied to renew the licence on the day of the fire, hours after it was reported. The application was subsequently rejected. The licence application had also been sitting unprocessed for 78 days before the inspection took place. MCD’s own preliminary probe has blamed the area inspector for that delay. The inspection that eventually happened took one day. The building was not what the paperwork described, and the inspection did not find that out. Twenty-three people were sleeping in a building that had no fire exit, was running four times its permitted capacity, and had been cleared for a licence the previous morning.
Source: Hindustan Times
