“Over 30 years ago, there was no proper fire safety equipment in India. I remember my father introducing some of the necessary services in fire safety in South India. Back then, I used to watch him very closely while he worked. I think that’s what inspired me to take up fire safety as a profession. By the time I was in college, I had already conducted more than 400 training sessions. My father suggested I do an in-depth course in it. I did my research and decided that I wanted to follow the British standards. I moved to London and completed multiple levels of trainings under the British Safety Council. Infact, I am the only brown woman from Asia to do Level 7 in Fire safety management from Cambridge University. I am also a certified safety expert from National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) of British Safety Council.

Throughout, my aim was to come back to India and set-up a full fledged team here. So I worked for a year and shifted back home. Since then, I’ve been doing my research and trying to create awareness on the importance and necessity of fire safety in India. We have a huge population, high density and very basic safety measures. Most of the people employed by big companies are not even experts in the field. How can we risk safety? We celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi and Dussehra in mandals acorss the country with diyas and lighting. In situations like this, it’s even more important to have all the safety measures in place.

I believe that basic fire safety needs to be a part of the curriculum for grade 10 students. In one of the incidents, I faced middle-aged woman throw a fire extinguisher into fire thinking that’s the way to make it work. She didn’t know that you have to clip it and extinguish by holding it in your hands. Luckily, I was around so I could help her out. But this is just one of the examples. There are so many incidents where we see the lack of awareness and education. Sensitising the public is absolutely important.

Consider Numaish. It is India’s biggest exhibition and lakhs of people visit every year. But last year in Hyderabad, a massive fire broke out at the Numaish exhibition in Nampally causing losses worth crores and had even halted the exhibition for a week. This accident happened just because of lack of awareness. People are not aware of what to do and what not to do incase of such emergencies. This year, the Telangana Government chose us to maintain safety and we did it successfully. This year, I also want to educate all the districts of the state through my project, Safe Zone Telangana. I want to create awareness and help people understand how to deal with fire accidents. That’s a concern we’re not addressing but something that really needs to be addressed.”

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