The new fire station at Matigara. A Telegraph picture

Siliguri, March 31: The second fire station for Siliguri subdivision constructed at Matigara in Paribahan Nagar will start functioning next week. The long awaited station will cater for the areas which were developed in the recent years.

Subhash Maitra, the station officer of the Siliguri fire, said Pratim Chatterjee, the Bengal minister of fire service, would inaugurate the new one.

Residents of Matigara, Shibmandir, Bagdogra, Champasari and the North Bengal University area will be benefited by the new fire station. They now depend on Siliguri, which is about 15km away from Matigara.

In the past couple of years, these areas witnessed a lot of growth with the construction of a new township and a residential complex. A number of central and sate government offices also came up at Paribahan Nagar.

According to Maitra, the new station will have one fire engine and a portable pump. The engine will have a capacity of 1,000 gallon. An underground water reservoir, which can store 2,000 gallon, has also been constructed. The staff will consist of one station officer, three sub-officers, 20 fire officers and seven drivers.

Work on the station started in March last year on 15 cottah of land provided by Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority (SJDA). The agency has spent Rs 60 lakh on the station before it was handed over to the fire department, said Shankar Roychoudhury, the superintendent engineer of the SJDA.

“The town has grown by leaps and bounds in the past couple of years. The new station will be a boon for us,” said Jyoti Tirkey, the sabhapati of Matigara panchayat samity.