NFSC proposes fire museum at Civil Lines old campus

 

 

 

National Fire Service College (NFSC) is exploring the prospect of establishing a Fire Museum in the city to detail the evolution of the fire-fighting system in the country. The authorities have identified the old campus of the college at pristine Civil Lines locality for this. The plan is in its primary stage. NFSC is going to appoint a consultant to get comprehensive idea on how to go about executing the project. The consultant will plan and also lay out a roadmap for the college authorities. The museum will house the old fire-fighting system, starting with evolution of fire services in the country, depicting its history, and also have various items on display. As the old Fire Service College building is listed as heritage structure, the authorities decided to convert the same into a museum, hoping to achieve both -- the conservation of structure and narrating to the citizens the way fire fighting operations have evolved over the years, Dinkar Mhaski, Administrative Officer, NFSC, told ‘The Hitavada’. Mhaski said, the old campus has an area of 3.75 acres and the two-storey building would first need heavy repairs to strengthen it. The college will hire the service of Structural Engineers to get the possibilities in the building assessed and suggest modalities needed. Only after the structure is certified fit, the establishing of fire museum would be taken up. A part of the building is leaning, and it would need reinforcement, he added.

 

According to Mhaski, there are already two well established fire museums in the country, one at Kolkata and another at Ahemdabad, and both are quite advanced ones. Given the space constraint at NFSC, the primary idea would be to showcase old equipment which would evoke the interest of people. The museum would add to the charm of the old Fire Service College and provide citizens with interesting compilation of equipment and tools used in fire-fighting. Along with old equipment, the latest models, advanced ladders and tools could also be housed in this museum. The note-sheet for the consultant reads that he would have to suggest how the history of the organisation should be depicted, how to design the internal layout, the interiors, other special requirements and, most of all, the estimated cost of the project. The consultant would have to provide a spreadsheet of how to execute the project. The museum would also house artefacts.

 

NFSC was established in 1956 and is one of the allied organisations of Disaster Management Division under the functioning of Director General (Fire Services, Civil Defence & Home Guards), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of lndia. The aim is to provide training to the fire officers of the country in advanced techniques of fire-fighting and rescue and create uniformity across fire service organisations in the country and their management. It was the only college in the country providing the BE (Fire Engineering) course when it began.