PNS|Hyderabad
BRS Working President KT Rama Rao visited the grieving families of the Gulzar House fire victims on Monday and appealed to the government to treat the tragedy as a wake-up call for strengthening the city’s emergency infrastructure.
Without direct criticism, KTR stressed the glaring lapses in Hyderabad’s fire response mechanisms and called for an immediate compensation of Rs 25 lakh to every bereaved family.
Seventeen members of the Agarwal family who were staying in the Charminar area for around 125 years perished in the inferno. Eight of them were children.
Describing it as one of the most painful tragedies in the city’s history, KTR said the victims’ families had shared heart-wrenching accounts of how fire tenders arrived without water and firefighters lacked even adequate masks to enter the smoke-filled building. “Even ambulances arrived without oxygen cylinders or basic medical support facilities. Had these basic facilities been in place, at least a few lives could have been saved,” he said.
KTR hailed the role of locals, cutting across religious lines, who rushed to help and pulled people out from the flames. “The victims’ families aren’t blaming anyone. They just want to ensure this never happens to another family,” he said.
KTR said that he was saddened by the fact that Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, who holds the portfolios of Home and Municipal Administration, did not visit the site.
“This is not about politics, it’s about humanity. His presence would have offered some solace to the grieving families and signalled that the government stands with the people,” he said.
Calling for Rs 25 lakh compensation to each of the affected families and help to the Agarwal family to restart their century-old business, KTR said such things were the least the government could do.
He also stressed that areas like Gulzar House, with their dense populations and narrow lanes, required greater preparedness in terms of fire safety, rescue operations, and real-time response.
“Our firemen need regular mock drills and better equipment. We need to treat fire preparedness as a critical civic function, not an afterthought,” he said, questioning why no summer preparedness reviews were held by the Municipal Administration Department this year.
KTR said the government should show the same level of urgency and resource allocation for emergency readiness as it does for glamour events. “The kind of attention and spending we saw for beauty pageants should be directed towards protecting human lives,” he stated.
