Fire Service will do Rescue in the Mountains with Modern ATV Vehicles | 11 Sep 2023

Why In News?

On September 9, 2023, Uttarakhand Fire Service IG Neeru Garg said that the fire service personnel will not have to put in much effort to reach the inaccessible routes in the mountains. For this, the police department is soon going to purchase two All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) vehicles for the fire service.

key points

• These (ATV) vehicles will be capable of entering ditches, rivers and drains everywhere.
• At present, these vehicles will be purchased for Kedarnath Dham and Gangotri Dham areas. Big vehicles cannot reach these places. Nor are small rescue vehicles of the fire service able to reach the narrow roads here. In such a situation, an ATV is the only suitable vehicle for these places. If they are successful here then ATVs will be purchased for other hilly places also.
• It is known that fire service is the first service to reach not only in case of fire but also in case of any accident. This is why it is also called first responder. As of now, the fire service does not have a modern fleet of vehicles so that inaccessible places can be easily reached with less risk.
• For this, recently a proposal for purchase of two ATV vehicles from the fire service was sent to the government. The government has not taken any decision on this, but now the police have got new hope from the World Bank budget. The World Bank can soon approve the budget for this. The price of each vehicle will be around Rs 75 lakh.
• It is noteworthy that recently the National Disaster Management Authority has also recommended ATVs for hilly places. Along with this, the Government of India has also asked all the hilly states to purchase such vehicles, so that people's lives can be saved by reaching narrow roads easily and quickly.
• These vehicles will also have the facility of carrying water to extinguish the fire, that is, along with carrying the soldiers for rescue, these vehicles will also do the work of extinguishing the fire.
• To reduce the risk of life in extinguishing fires, the fire service will soon take the help of robots. Approval for this was given last year. Now tenders for the purchase of two robots have also been issued by the fire service. Bids have been invited from vendors till September 20. After the completion of the tender process, modern robots will join the fire service fleet.