Hindustan Times 16.09.2010
Women to get space in fire forcesThe idea was backed by Kshatriya and Mayor Shraddha Jadhav during an annual function at the fire brigade headquarters in Byculla early this year.
"By the end of this year, the BMC will fill 120 vacant posts in the department and the reservation will be implemented from then. The first batch of women fire fighters will be recruited with them," said an official from the fire brigade department.
Additional Municipal Commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar said the administration was keen on recruiting women in the fire department and was working towards it.
Officials from the department said that the nature of work these recruits will be doing, will need to be outlined and parameters such as their impact on the department and their pattern of working will have to be defined in the policy.
"They can start with manning control rooms of the fire stations, they can be assigned to monitor the mobile control vans and batches of the these women can be trained for some time and then they can be assigned full-fledged roles in rescue operations," said a senior official from the fire brigade department.
Fire brigades in Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad have had women fire fighters since 2003.
