Even as revellers waited excitedly to kick off the garba season, a number of venues in Ahmedabad and Surat struggled until the last-minute to get Fire Safety Certificates (FSC) for the event. In Ahmedabad, on the first night of Navratri on Thursday, only two-third organisers had fire clearances while less than a third received final permissions from the police by 7.30 pm, just an hour before the start of the festivities. A few more received permissions later in the evening. This year, getting an FSC has been made mandatory for large-scale garba organisers in light of the TRP Game Zone fire in Rajkot in May that left 27 persons dead. The Indian Express learnt that out of a total of 90 applications of garba venues for fire safety inspection with the Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Services (AFES), only 58 had been granted FSCs till 7.30 pm on Thursday. In-charge Chief Fire Officer (CFO) Jayesh Khadia confirmed that he would wait till 8.30 pm to see if anyone else was to be granted FSCs. By this deadline, the number of venues with FSCs had reached 64. This still left 26 venues without the requisite FSC, without which they would be unable to get final permission from the police, at least on the first day of Navratri. Sources in the police confirmed that only 31 venues had been granted permission to host garba by 7.30 pm on October 3. Even as sources said the final count had reached 40, no senior officers could be reached for comment due to the entire top echelon of the police force busy, especially in light of Union Home Minister Amit Shah's visit to the city. Meanwhile in Surat, fire department officials gave fire certificates to two organisers on Thursday while two continued to wait for the clearance. Sources said that over 17 professional organisers are holding Garba event at different places in the city. Surat Municipal Corporation Chief Fire officer Basant Pareek said, “We have received 16 applications for fire safety out of which 12 were given permission after we checked them for implementation of fire safety norms. Today, we have given permission to two more, while clearances for two others are still pending.” Surat Police Department Deputy Commissioner of Police, special branch, Hetal Patel said, “We gave permission to two organisers today (Thursday) after they submitted all necessary certificates. Slowly, others are also approaching us and after perusing the documents, we will give them the police permission.” Surat police commissioner Anupam Singh Gahlaut said, “Before giving police permission, our team checks if the event organisers have NOCs for Fire, Health, Electrical and Structural issues.” On the two remaining garba organisers, he said they were yet to come and receive certificates from him.
