Kolkata: After issuing closure notices to over 500 hotels and guest houses, among an estimated 4,000 establishments require inspection for violating fire safety or building rules following a fire on Free School Street that claimed nine lives, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) set a Sept 20 deadline to complete safety audits for the remaining establishments.KMC buildings dept sources said officials are focusing on specific zones across 16 boroughs with high concentrations of these properties. However, officials acknowledged the challenge of completing the task in two weeks, as an estimated 4,000 establishments require inspection. “We have surveyed less than 20% of targeted properties. Visiting the remainder in two weeks remains difficult,” a KMC official said.Besides meeting deadlines, the KMC buildings dept senior officials are finding it difficult to shut hotels and guest houses before Durga Puja. “We are being approached by a section of the owners of the hotels and guest houses that have been closed to consider giving a licence to reopen them. They are pleading with us as the future of their employees is dependent on our decision,” said a civic official. However, the civic officials made it clear that the decision to reopen the closed establishments was resting on the civic brass.These closure notices apart, several lodges, guest houses and hotels in central Kolkata have voluntarily suspended operations, fearing sudden closure notices from the KMC and the state fire dept during an ongoing safety audit, said a KMC official.Hotels in and around New Market, including Mirza Ghalib Street, Lindsay Street, Collin Lane, Sudder Street, Marquis Street and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, have stopped taking bookings to avoid the ignominy of asking guests to leave at short notice. The move follows the closure of more than 200 hotels in less than a week, in that zone many of them ordered to shut operations with less than 24 hours’ notice.According to a KMC building department official, the focus of the safety audit was on specific zones in some boroughs. “We have found Mukundapur and its adjacent areas off EM Bypass under borough XII around which there are several private hospitals tops the list of hotels and guest houses followed by areas such as Park Circus, Park Street, Kyd Street, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, Free School Street, Sudder street, Kyd Street under boroughs VI and VII that have around 1000 such establishments. Boroughs IV and V located in Burrabazar and its adjacent areas too have lion’s share in the city’s hotels and guest house numbers,” said a KMC official.
