Indian Oil Depot Jaipur Still on Fire

36 hours has passed so far but the Indian oil depot in Jaipur is still on fire. The fire on tankers are slowly dying away, and at this speed it can take another 36 hours to completely end. This is not just a loss of big time fuel, but many lives are also claimed by the fire. So far 11 people have died in the fire and the number of the injured ones are more than 150. The fire started as a result of the pipeline leakage, and 50 kilo liters of diesel got exposed and caught fire. Since then the officials are only praying to god so that the fuel gets quickly burnt so that the long burning fire finally dies.

Petroleum Minister on his part had announced monetary relief to the persons that suffered as a result of this fire. Families of those that dies will get Rs 10 lakh each, 2 lakh for seriously injured and 1 lakh to those that got minor injury.

As a result of this incident, the skies of the city is completely covered in smoke, an over all yellowish color is seen. So much of fuel loss, so many people died and then so much of pollution in just 2 days time, and if that was not enough, the officials are now sitting idly and waiting for the fire to end naturally which might take another 2 days or more. This incident reminds us of the famous Bhopal gas tragedy, which was the worst disaster till date.

This Jaipur oil tanker fire has also raised many questions over the efficiency of the firefighters and the facilities they are equipped with. This particular fire is way to huge but from the looks of it, I doubt if they can fight a normal fire. Not a single firefighter had been employed in the last 20 years in any of the districts, and there is no training center for firefighters either. The firemen don’t have any new equipment and their vehicles are age old. So you must be thinking that no money is allotted for them? You are wrong, in the 5^th five year plan they got 10 crore and in the 11^th they got 22 crore Rs of fire budget. Another Rs 23 crore is issued from the banks, and here we are, fire is burning and all these people can do is wait for the fuel to end. Rs 500 crore worth of fuel has already burned in the 2^nd day of the fire, but who cares?