Kachipura garage owners stare at bleak future after fire, NMC action

A WEEK after the devastating fire at his garage, 50-year-old Gulzar Sheikh is busy in its make-over at Kachipura in Bajaj Nagar. He lost garage machinery worth more than Rs one lakh and two cars of his customers in the fire that broke out in the midnight of August 6. Sheikh has the additional burden of repairing the badly damaged cars too. Already facing severe turmoil in the business, Sheikh and fellow garage owners are now facing another challenge. The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has served notices to the garage owners asking them to desist from repairing or reconstructing their garages. Sheikh is still coming to terms with the double whammy even as the fellow garage owners stare at a dark future. The fire has gobbled up their only source of income.

Talking to ‘The Hitavada’, Sheikh mourned the situation as he struggled to cope up with the disaster. “We haven’t received a single penny or support as help from any government agency. And now we are receiving notices not to resume our work,” he said.
The August 6 midnight fire at eight garages of Kachipura area has shattered lives of the garage owners. Jagdish Rathod, owner of Rathod Garage, is running the garage at Kachipura since 2001 but never saw a single fire incident in the last 20 years. The inferno gutted garage and mechanic tools apart from two vehicles of his customers.
Mushtaque Ahmed, owner of New Nagpur Garage, has managed to resume work at his garage after facing losses of more than Rs 3.5 lakh. The 65-year-old said that it was a difficult task to restart business after facing such huge losses following long lockdowns.
The garage owners feel something fishy about the fire incident. They claimed that some anti-socials deliberately set the backyard of the garages on fire. They also ruled possibility of short-circuit stating the power meters were installed at the front side while the back side of the garages had caught fire at around 2 am when all the shops were shut.
During the fire-fighting operation, an excavator was called by the NMC officials which razed all the shops made of tin sheds. The owners also questioned the use of excavators during the fire fighting operation.
The reason behind the devastating fire was not yet established by the police or fire department of NMC.
Chief Fire Officer of NMC Rajendra Uchake said that police had authority to investigate and ascertain the reason behind the fire.
Senior WPI Shubhangi Deshmukh of Bajaj Nagar police station said the cops had yet to come to any conclusion about actual reason behind the fire.
When asked about serving notices to the garage owners, NMC Assistant Commissioner Prakash Warade said that the notices were served after receiving complaints of some local residents.
“We have asked them to show their land ownership before restarting construction,” Warade said, adding that this was a precautionary measure so that such an incident would not occur in future.
Incidentally, the office of Unit No. 1 of the Crime Branch is located along the garage line.