Hyderabad : Reinforcing its commitment to student safety and disaster preparedness, the Telangana Fire, Disaster Response, Emergency & Civil Defence Department, in association with Basic Elements, organised a Fire Safety Awareness Programme for School Managements today at Ravindra Bharathi, Hyderabad.
The programme was inaugurated by Chief Guest Sri Vikram Singh Mann, IPS, Director General, Telangana Fire, Disaster Response, Emergency & Civil Defence Department, in the presence of as the Guest of Honour, Sri Prasad Nishtala, Founder Director & CEO, Basic Elements; and over 500 school owners, correspondents, principals and senior administrators from educational institutions across Telangana.
The initiative assumes added significance in the wake of tragic fire accidents reported from educational institutions across the country, where negligence and inadequate safety measures have resulted in the loss of innocent lives. Conducted at the beginning of the new academic year, the programme aimed to sensitise school managements on adopting preventive measures, strengthening emergency preparedness, and creating safer learning environments for students and staff.
Addressing the gathering, Sri Vikram Singh Mann, IPS, said, Fire safety is not merely a statutory requirement but a shared responsibility. Every educational institution must be prepared to prevent emergencies and respond effectively should they occur. Awareness, preparedness and regular safety audits can save lives.
The fact of our society is that we don’t give much importance to fire safety. That consciousness is not there among us. We take it as a button or we just don’t have an idea. We have no clue what to do about fire safety. What exactly is meant by fire safety? What is fire prevention? What are the fire precautions? What are the do’s and don’ts? So today, with the support of Mr. SN Reddy, President of TRSMA and Mr. Prasad from the Basic Elements. we have assembled here to at least learn something about fire safety in schools. Already Mr. Reddy told that it is such a big organization. How many? About 12,000 schools are there with him and that could be lakhs of students are studying there. And as he mentioned, these are not very high grade corporate schools. But they are a very large percentage of the total school system. So that is why the importance of today’s event. I will just give you a small presentation. Because it is my belief that on the one hand where we should have laws. Where we should have regulations, rules. At the same time, it is our duty to spread awareness. and orientation among all sections of society. Particularly among the school management. For today’s program, we have intentionally not invited the students, because this auditorium is not enough. Lakhs and lakhs of students are there, for that different level of awareness and orientation is required. At different places, at different levels. So at least for a beginning, I felt that at least one program we should have. Where the school management representation is there and along with that the most important associations. Who are representing the interest of these schools. Because ultimately any large body needs a voice. TRSMA is one of the largest organizations. I think apart from TRSMA, one or two more organizations and associations are also participating today. So that is very very heartening, very glad to know that. My request to all of you from the management is that maybe you are the owners today You may be a partner. You may have constructed that school building or you may be the school correspondent or you may be the principal or senior vice principal or somebody you might be from the administration head side. That is okay. My only request will be that once you go back after today’s program. Call all your management people. Discuss with them. Think about what the measures are you need to do and what you have done so far. The ultimate objective is that we should make our schools. Whatever is the level of school. Whether it is a nursery school. It’s a primary, it’s a high secondary or whatever. The safest place for any child. School should be absolutely safe for any child. In whatever class he or she is studying. That is the bottom line. Earlier I think Mr. Reddy only mentioned that luckily, fortunately in our state of Telangana. We have not witnessed any such bad, unfortunate fire incidents in the school. So we are grateful to the almighty. and grateful to everybody. Every management, every school association, every committee. All the parent teacher associations. Everybody, That may be yes, may be lucky so far. But I tell you. It is not about luck only. There are some things in life which you cannot give only to fate or destiny and that destiny you know. Out of the, let’s say, karma. Let’s be very clear, there is no karma here, It is our orientation. It is our awareness. It is our knowledge. It is our following the rules, regulations and guidelines and conducting such awareness campaigns. Taking feedback from all of you. Taking feedback from your associations and try to further improve the fire safety environment in the schools.
A brief presentation was made, following which he directed that the message be communicated to every school, every school management, and every parent to ensure widespread awareness and implementation.
Sri Prasad Nishtala, Founder Director & CEO, Basic Elements, said, Technology today plays a critical role in preventing disasters before they occur. Through smart monitoring and proactive safety solutions, schools can significantly strengthen their preparedness and ensure continuous protection of their students, staff and infrastructure.
Towards fire safety and towards the fire safety procedures. DG Sir was talking about all these things. It is lucky it didn’t happen to us. For us, this looks like a bit of news but imagine what would be the family who has sent their children to school or the function we, when the child goes to school and comes back as a body. When we read in our newspapers most of the times, we feel sorry for a second, but beyond that our commitment, as DG Sir was saying sometime back, is limited. You know, when I’m running a fire safety organization, the day a fire accident happens, that day we get a lot of inquiries. Two days down, it all tapers. That should not be the case. See, as school management, you all understand that a child spends about 6 to 8 hours of his day in a school, when he is going to school, and this becomes, thereby it becomes more imperative that we make this space a very safe space for them to learn and enjoy. So this, especially this kind of safety awareness programs. In fact, I would also like to tell all the managements here, that as a part of HSAI, we do free training programs in your schools. If you are interested, please, you can reach out to any of our volunteers. We will do these training programs in your school free of cost. So as Sir was saying, please utilize, if you do not have enough people who can train, kindly use the other volunteer organizations that are willing to participate and train. In most countries, they feel very proud about the country that they are in. They feel very proud. In fact, most people, about being a firefighter or a water warrior, those who say water, those who are firefighters, they wear their T-shirts saying that I am a firefighter, I am an emergency responder. And you find these people in auditorium and they say that in case of anything, you can reach out. This kind of a culture needs to be inculcated from the childhood so that a person feels proud of becoming a firefighter or an emergency responder. Now, Sir talked at length about the 2004 Supreme Court issue and the other issues. See, what happens is, you get sensitive for a moment or when you get a notice and after that it is forgotten. Now manually to maintain so many things also is getting difficult. Now what I and we as Basic Elements have invented a product which I am launching today is basically called FIOT where it helps in schools in case of smoke detection, heat detection, gas leak or carbon monoxide. And why schools need this? Because now it was not the type of schools of earlier stages where about when we went to school there was a classroom, there was not even a fan but we all went there, came out very free. But today the amount of electrical load, the various other gadgets that are being used increases the demand and thereby increases the need for fire safety. For most many years we never had three storey, four storey schools but now that is also becoming a reality. Now before I get into the details, all of you who have an Android phone, I would like you to scan this and download the app on your mobile. And can I have Mahesh? Where is Mahesh? Yes. Mahesh Saicharan, can you just help us? You know what we are going to do here? You have downloaded an app on your mobile. We have made things easy for you. Whether it is you, our management, school management, very few principals here but what is happening in your school you would get to know on your mobile. How? I am going to show it to you now. Now this is a detector which Mahesh is holding, which is a stand-alone detector. It is battery driven. The battery lasts for one year. And when you put this, for example I am just giving you, you are putting this detector in your school bus. Okay. Have you downloaded the app? Can I have a raise of hands? Right. Now this is smoke basically. He is giving smoke to this. What will happen is, this detector once it detects smoke, it will hoot here, means it will hoot in your school bus. But if you are management and you are in your office, it will ring in your office. Suppose you didn’t go to office, you are at home, it will ring on your mobile. This, our invention mimics this sound on your mobile. So you open for the demo now. So now, what is happening on your mobile? Are you getting the ring? Hello, we are not talking to us, right? Yeah, you are getting it? See, this is what happens. If you install this in your school bus, if the bus is having a fire accident somewhere in Nagpur and you are sitting here in the audience, okay, can we silent the mobiles? So what will happen? In your app also, till then it was looking green and now it is ringing. This, even if you are watching your Reels, your Facebook or your Instagram or your WhatsApp, this app overrules every other thing that you are watching. And it will ring. And even if you have switched it off, if your mobile is switched off also, you will get this ring. So because it is an emergency. So we are working in the pre-detection space. What you have seen now is good for schools, your auditorium, your school buses. In fact, most states now have made this mandatory in the school buses. But we are trying to give a lot of value because those school buses, it rings and maybe only the driver can hear. Now I will show you the subsequent slides how the management can see this. Next slide. This is how the whole thing works. I might try to make it very simple. (8:32) It detects smoke. It analyses what is the problem. It gives you an alert on your mobile. And then the time for the responders to respond and protect the children. I am not feeling very, in fact I feel very obliged and thankful to God that He has given me an opportunity to protect children. And I would like to take it to the hilt actually. All children, we will try to see that. In fact in one of my earlier programs, we have covered 33 lakh children in India. Now with this program, in fact why I am doing this is I would like to cover more than 50 lakh children in India. That’s my mission. This is what happens when a school bus, now you see so many buses, not only school buses, there are so many other buses that are getting on fire. In fact the other day we were in discussion with the transport commissioner. He feels that this should be mandatory in all the electrical and long distance buses. How does it look? Suppose as a school you have 20 buses. And bus number one has a fire accident. This is how your dashboard looks in your school. You have 30 buses, one is on fire. So immediately, the beauty of this is, you have seen within 5 seconds you get an alert on your mobile, which overrides everything. So most fires in the first 180 seconds are not disasters. So if we can do something in the first 10 minutes, we would like to sensitize school management and the administrators of schools on how this can be managed in a detailed way. And we will take this forward.
Sri S N Reddy, State President, TRSMA; said, It was stated that the Supreme Court laid down certain regulations following a fire accident at a school in Tamil Nadu, and that all schools must comply with them. We protect our school children through 24/7 CCTV monitoring, and the dedicated support of non-teaching staff, ensuring a safe, secure, and caring learning environment for every student. Telangana has nearly 5 lakh teachers & non-teaching staff, around 12,000 schools, and approximately 62 lakh school students, of whom 37 lakh are studying in private schools. Every child deserves a safe, secure, and inspiring learning environment where they can develop knowledge, confidence, and values. By strengthening school safety and ensuring equal access to quality education. Together, let us work with dedication and determination to make Telangana the No. 1 literacy state in India.
The comprehensive awareness programme covered key aspects of fire risk assessment, prevention of fire hazards, emergency response protocols, evacuation planning, fire protection systems, regulatory compliance, and the responsibilities of school managements in maintaining safe educational campuses.
As part of the event, Basic Elements Launched “FIoT” Smart IoT Monitoring Solutions for Schools, first of its kind in India, a standalone smart fire detector developed for independent establishments such as schools, coaching centres, clinics, retail outlets, offices, pharmacies, restaurants, and other small commercial occupancies, making early fire detection simple, reliable, and accessible; where in you can monitor your premises from your mobile or other browsers.
The other innovative first of its kind products like BE- PROMPT and IGNICOP have also been demonstrated which are intelligent emergency communication systems that instantly alerts designated stakeholders during fire emergencies.
The organisers expressed confidence that the initiative would encourage educational institutions across Telangana to adopt a proactive approach towards fire safety and disaster preparedness, fostering a culture of prevention and ensuring safer schools for every child.