Hoteliers, locals aghast over no fire service station in Sonamarg

Ganderbal, Feb 08: The traders, hoteliers as well as locals at famous tourist destination Sonamarg in Ganderbal district are aghast against the authorities for failing to establish a fire services station here, and demanded immediate setting up of a fire tender that can help to minimize the loses during the fire incidents in future, if any.

According to the business owners, dozens of structures including shops and hotels have gutted in several devastating fire incident during past at Sonamarg in which property worth crores was destroyed.

Notably on Saturday a massive fire erupted in main market Sonamarg causing massive damage to several structures including hotels and shops.

Traders said that the delay in the arrival of fire tenders resulted in massive losses. They said that the authorities had assured of setting up a fire-tender unit in the area, but till now no such unit has been established,” adding the fire tender had to come from Gund and Kangan areas that is nearly 20-40 Kilometers away which takes a lot of time thereby multiplying the damage.

A local business owner Furqan Ahmad told Greater Kashmir that for last two decades they have been demanding a fire services station at Sonamarg, adding that despite getting assurances from successive governments and senior administration officials nothing substantial has been done so far.

He said that in past many devastating fire incidents have occurred at Sonamarg consuming property worth crores, adding that the damage would have been lessened if the fire tenders had been on the spot. He said the latest incident which happened in Sonamarg caused massive damage to the property.

“There have been many such fire incidents in the past due to which the locals as well as the traders had to suffer huge loses” he said. “In 2006 and 2007, 2016 dozens of shops were gutted in a devastating fire incidents and authorities assured that a fire station unit will be set up here, however we only get assurances but nothing substantial has been done yet” a local resident Nazir Ahmed said.

The locals as well as traders have demanded immediate setting up of a fire services station at Sonamarg.