Canning Street: Bagree Market, with its huge stock of inflammable items such as perfumes and deodorants, leather bags and paper products, did have some fire-fighting equipment but they allegedly didn't work when the devastating fire broke out early on Sunday.

Many traders complained that tanks installed on the roof of the six-storey building to fight fire were empty.

"All traders with shops in the market had been asked to contribute towards building the fire-fighting infrastructure. I have seen there are pipes in the staircases. About a year ago, I had heard the fire alarm go off when some smoke was detected," said a leather goods manufacturer, who has a shop in the market.

But he and several other traders Metro spoke to couldn't say who was responsible for the maintenance of the fire safety infrastructure. "I have not seen anyone doing drills or checking the fire-safety tools. I am not sure whether there are sprinklers in the building," another trader said.

The market has eight blocks and nearly 1,000 shops, offices, godowns and stores.

The fire department and the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) have asked markets - private as well as government-run - to install fire-safety gadgets.

The civic body had decided at a meeting with traders' associations of several markets in July that this was the last time trade licences would be renewed without a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the fire brigade, a CMC official said.

"The traders were asked to give an undertaking that they would obtain an NOC from the fire brigade before applying for renewal of the trade licence next year," the official said.

Mayor and fire services minister Sovan Chatterjee said the Bagree Market traders had sought time to implement the fire-safety recommendations.

The traders questioned the fire brigade for not using hydraulic ladders to douse the flames. Minister Chatterjee said the ladders couldn't be used because of overhead cables. CESC officials said there were no overhead electric cables on Canning Street.

"The fire brigade could have called us to find out and we would have helped them immediately," a CESC official said.

The firefighters were able to enter the premises around 1pm on Sunday, over 10 hours after the fire had been detected around 2.30am.