Hyderabad: The recent accident on the Outer Ring Road (ORR) — where a man was charred to death inside his car in Shamirpet — has raised serious concern over the response time of emergency services on the expressway. TOI found that all fire stations around the 158-km-long ORR are at least 10 km to 12 km away from an exit point, making it impossible for help to reach any spot before 15 to 20 minutes.In the Nov 24 incident too, fire department officials said that it took close to an hour for fire tenders from the nearest fire station in Cherlapally — 29 km away — to reach the spot and douse the fire that had engulfed the victim’s car. By then, the man was already charred to death beyond recognition.Apart from Cherlapally, the other fire stations closest to the ORR are located in Gachibowli, Shamirpet, Kukatpally, Rajendranagar, Hayathnagar, Patancheru, Jeedimetla, Madhapur, and Maheshwaram.“Since the ORR came up long after the city’s fire stations were established, they ended up being far from the expressway,” said Narayana Rao, director, Telangana fire dept, adding that new fire stations along the stretch are in the pipeline. “They will be introduced soon,” he said.Lack of exitsFire officials also claimed that the lack of entry points along the ORR is a major hurdle. “It has only 22 exit points — one for every seven to eight km. If we are to arrive within 5 mins to 10 mins of an accident, we need more exits to be introduced,” said V Srinivas, district fire officer from Malkajgiri.Road safety expert and trainer Dheerandra Samineni also called for “tweaking of ORR’s design” along with introducing “flying fire services” as is used in the West. “There are no gaping medians (wide openings) on the ORR. As a result, there is no provision to go to the opposite side without going to the nearest exit point, taking a U-turn, and then re-entering from the other side. This takes a lot of time, as has been seen in the recent incident. Gaping medians should be introduced in accident-prone areas on the ORR so that fire services can reach the other side quickly,” he said.Experts also called for creating a system of keeping ambulances and fire tenders on standby, along the ORR. “Users pay a hefty toll to use the ORR. It cannot just be used to lay roads. Authorities must also beef up emergency services — patrolling vehicles and fire tenders. There must be more CCTVs too. Insurance companies must step in and invest,” said TS Reddy, former head of traffic and transport dept, Central Road Research Institute.More cameras: HMDAOfficials of Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) that oversees the ORR said that it is in the process of installing more violation-tracking cameras along the stretch, to enhance the speed of response time. “Right now, we don’t have an automated system to deploy emergency services during a fire and still rely on witnesses calling emergency numbers, which can delay response,” said a senior official. He added: “We’ve already floated tenders for cameras that will detect violations and instantly alert the control room in case of accidents, helping cut response times. Pan-tilt-zoom cameras are already in place at entry and exit points, and additional cameras will be installed along the road.”As per the current system, in the event of fire accidents on the ORR, HMDA first deploys ambulances and emergency patrolling vehicles with basic fire equipment (like fire extinguishers). Subsequently, the fire department is alerted and called in to handle the situation.
