Rs 50: That's all a Mumbai firefighter's life is worth

HANGING FIRE: Not even a basic safety kit is available for Rs 50 - the allowance that firemen get.

Featured Blog

Rajdeep Sardesai

Maharaj or Dada, Ganguly's legacy lives on

Featured Slideshows

Mumbai: With inflation figures rising every week, what could possibly be the value of Rs 50?

Mumbai's municipal corporation – BMC – seems to think Rs 50 is the value of a firefighter's life.

Ask Kavita Sangrulakar. The Rs 50-per-month risk allowance could not save her brother Abhay Mohite – a fireman who lost his life on duty at an operation at Mumbai’s Nariman Point.

A desolate Kavita is now ready to take on the BMC.

"I have lost my brother but I have decided to talk for my other firemen brother of the department. They will never speak because they might lose their job,” she says.

Monsoon is perhaps the worst season for firemen. From dealing with building collapses to rescuing people from deluge, these saviours put their lives to risk but are offered negligible returns or insurance.

Forty-one fire brigade personnel have been seriously injured in the last 15 months. Of them, 11 were injured in the last two months alone and one lost his life.

Assuming Rs 50 is a cover good enough for the risk firemen take, CNN-IBN did a check on how much medical aid can be availed with that sum.

As expected not even a basic safety kit is available for that sum.

But despite all this, for many firefighters like Nilesh Verlekar and his colleagues, any time is a call time.

"Generally we take all the precautions. It’s a team event but during some fire calls or other service calls, officers are injured,” Verlekar says.

Theirs is a job with high risk and low pay but they continue with their work regardless of the government's apathy.