Mushroom growth of petrol pumps, CNG refueling stations without safety measures

There has been a mushroom growth of petrol pumps and CNG refueling stations in the city with a motive to earn money without ensuring safety measures in most stations.
Safety measures needed to avoid any untoward incident are not available in the city’s CNG refueling and pump stations and many people engaged in the stations are not trained up at all.
Fire extinguishing equipments which are necessary to instantly douse flame are not available and also any signboard of cautionary direction upon possible danger in the stations is totally absent.
These stations are generally approved by the government on condition that training for people working at the stations have to be provided by the companies and fire extinguishing equipment will be available. But owners of these stations are running their refueling stations violating conditions laid down by the authority putting people and vehicles at high risk.
During a visit to different stations in the city, this correspondent found that a good number of people working at different stations in the city were not provided with training by the companies though they have been doing the job for last few years. Besides, smoking is totally forbidden at refueling stations but workers and auto rickshaw drivers were seen smoking at Farm Gate (Indira Road) CNG station yesterday.
Talking to this correspondent, a fire station master employed at Mohammedpur said that fire extinguishing equipment are not available in most CNG refueling stations. “We have already started monitoring the performance of different CNG and petrol refueling stations. If fire extinguishing equipments are not found at any station, action against that will be recommended to the authority.”
Owners of CNG and petrol refueling stations are invited different times by ‘Fire brigade and civil defense’ authority for providing training to their manpower. Actions including financial penalty have already been recommended to the authority against those who will fail to receive training despite invitation, said a fire station master.

Courtesy of The Bangladesh Today