Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Fire Service has found glaring negligence in fire safety measures during an inspection of hotels, shopping malls, clinical establishments and private buildings in Puri town on Wednesday. Fire officials said that all these establishments would be served notices to comply the fire safety norms at the earliest.

A fire bucket used as dustbin, an electric transformer positioned below a children's play parlour, storage of groceries and vegetables in the electrical panel room and absence of hose pipe in a hose reel left the inspecting teams in utter shock.

"Many hotels, shopping malls and clinical establishments don't have complete and comprehensive fire safety measures. In some places open space, corridors, escape routes were found to be blocked. Housekeeping which plays a major role in fire safety was not proper. Besides most of the shopping malls and hotels don't have adequate exit signage for evacuation during emergency," said a press release of the Odisha Fire Service directorate. As many as 24 establishments were inspected by the fire personnel today.

Though Puri town has more than 300 hotels, the fire services personnel on Wednesday managed to inspect only 12 prominent hotels, mostly located near the beach. On January 23, a major fire broke out at a posh hotel on VIP Road.

However, no one was injured in the incident as the rooms, which were affected by the fire, were unoccupied.

"Notices will be served on these establishments very soon to comply with the fire safety norms. The establishments will also be asked to fulfil the shortcomings within specified time period. If they fail to comply within the specified time these establishments may be sealed. The inspection will continue and all such establishments will be inspected," said chief fire officer (fire prevention wing) of Odisha B.B. Das.