Bhubaneswar: The state government has made a one-time relaxation scheme for issuance of fire safety certificates to buildings operating prior to the implementation of Odisha Fire Prevention and Fire Safety Rules, 2017.
The Home department has recently issued a notification in this regard. Deviation in height, built-up area and occupancy area will be taken into consideration under the scheme.
In case of buildings having no approved plan, the owner will have to submit the building plan as per actual construction being signed by himself/herself and a registered architect. The fire service officials will inspect the building and if the building or occupancy fulfills the other requirements of relaxation scheme, his case will be considered for issuance of fire safety certificate.
In case of government buildings, if the plan is prepared by a technical person of any department, it will be accepted for issuance of certificate. If the adjoining road is of minimum 6-metre width and there is accessibility to fire tenders, such buildings can also avail the benefit.
In case of high-rises, if public road of 6-metre width is available in front and 6-metre open space/public road is available at any of the adjoining sides of the building then setback norm will be relaxed.
Similarly, the low-rise buildings having public road of 6-metre width in front and 6-metre open space at any of the adjoining sides of the building then also setback is not required.
If there is no setback available on left and right side of any building, then the owners of the adjoining plots can remove the common boundary wall to provide open space and get the certificate.
In all such cases of relaxation, after obtaining the fire safety certificate, the owner or occupier is required to regularise the deviation by the plan approving authority of jurisdiction as per guideline issued by Urban Development department from time to time.
In all cases, the period for compliance to submit wanting documents will be two weeks and compliance for safety requirements will be three months, which can exceed maximum upto 6 months.
If the applicant fails to meet the compliance within the specified time his application shall be rejected and in such cases the applicant needs to apply afresh, the notification said.