Cos get ready for some 'fire-fighting'

KOLKATA: Corporate India is recruiting fire-fighters, quite literally, to keep pace with the growing demand for this rather unconventional tribe of professionals. The demand for fire engineers is being driven by a growing number of greenfield projects and new commercial projects coming up across the country and a growing awareness about fire safety norms.

Companies across the board are picking up fire engineers — be it ONGC, Maruti Udyog, Reliance Industries, ITC, Tata Motors, Essar Oil, Gail (India), BPCL, SAIL and Haldia Petrochemicals. Their services are also in demand in new shopping malls, cineplexes, hospitals and five-star hotels.

Awareness about fire safety norms and growth of new businesses are spurring demand. Anil Kumar, director general, West Bengal Fire Service said: “As per the norms of the revised National Building Code, any new building or facility of a certain height needs to have an in-built fire insulation system. Hence most new buildings now need to employ the services of a fire engineer.”

Topline corporates are now employing fire experts right at planning, budgeting and implementation stage of new projects to reduce chances of any untoward incident in future. As a result, starting salaries of fire engineers has jumped from Rs 35,000 to 40,000 this year, against Rs 8,000-14,000 two years back.

“Salaries for freshers have gone up by 20-25% this year,” said Shamim Ahmed Shiek, director, National Fire Service College (NFSC), Nagpur. This year, it got some 20,000 applicants for 30-odd seats on offer.

The demand for such courses has led to setting up of new institutes. College of Fire Technology, Ahmedabad, Delhi Institute of Fire Engineering (DIFE), Institute of Fire and Safety Technology and National Institute of Fire and Safety (both in Kochi), National Centre for Professional Training, Kerala, and National Fire Academy, Vadodora are churning out fire engineers.

CFT, Ahmedabad, which is affiliated to Gujarat University and offers a 3-yr BSc (Fire) degree, has seen its student base almost double in the last one year.

Major BR Sabarwal (retd), director, CFT Ahmedabad said: “Our current batch size is 75 against last year’s 40 students.” Students are getting job offers from West Asia, Europe and even the US. “We had several job offers from oil refineries in the West Asian region,” said Mr Shiek.

Head hunters have also entered the fray. “With the deployment of fire professionals made mandatory in several sectors, manpower agencies are also tracking students,” said Kishen Kumar, vice-chairman, DIFE.