Tetra system Mumbai Firebrigade is yet to see the light of the day
With the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) not taking steps to overhaul the obsolete one-way system used by firemen, rescue operations are often conducted under great risk.
The Times of India reports that the department uses hand-held walkie-talkies, inducted in 1960, to communicate. The system, which works on a very high frequency, is now failing as signals get weak after a certain height, in the middle of dense highrise buildings, and in basements. With highrises and RCC buildings being a common sight in the city, cases of weak network and miscommunication between firemen handling rescue operations and ground staff are a common complaint.
Additional municipal commissioner Sanjay Deskhmukh insisted there was no communication problem due to the old sets during the Lotus Business Park fire-fighting operations, claiming that the police use a similar system.
Even messages passed on from the central control room to fire stations, to alert them about any blaze, are not clear, which leads to fire brigade personnel often searching for wrong addresses. "The system being used today was effective when were no highrise or basements. A message from the control room in Byculla could be transmitted right up to Dahisar clearly. But that is no longer the case now," said a fire brigade official.
The fire brigade had in 2008-09 drafted a proposal to acquire the analogue communication radio system (MPT 1327), which is two-way and disturbance-free. The proposal included overhauling the entire communication system, which would mean setting up new towers and acquiring radio sets.
Three towers were set up at Aarey Colony, RCF Colony (Chembur) and Byculla but the sets were not acquired.
Then the terrestrial trunked radio (Tetra) was considered, as it was said to be superior to MPT 1327. In order to avoid wastage of public money, the civic body decided to strike down the purchase of MPT 1327 technology radio sets as the fire brigade would have got new sets when the Tetra network was established by the civic disaster management cell. But, while plans for MPT 1327 were shelved, the Tetra system is yet to see the light of the day.
In fact, soon after the deluge of 2005, the civic body had started discussions on creating a communication network that could mesh the police, fire department and other emergency responders on a single system, which can withstand all calamities.
Sources said the 2007 tender was cancelled after a competitor complained they were not given adequate time to participate. A fresh expression of interest was issued in December 2008. This tender process was again cancelled due to legal hurdles in 2009.
