TOGETHERVCAN’S SOCIAL SANCHAR ON ATMANIRBHAR SURAKSHA

When
July 14,2023 @ 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

SOCIAL SANCHAR – PANEL DISCUSSION ON 14TH JULY 2023

Atmanirbhar Suraksha

Electrical Safety in Non-negotiable!

Building upon the previous panel discussions on Fire and Electrical Safety, on 11th October and 21st November 2022 respectively, it emerged that electrical short-circuits are a leading cause of fires, and one of the main contributing factors to this is the overloading of electrical systems and use of substandard materials, which are not certified by BIS.

Rather than leaving it to the Fire Departments and Municipal Authorities alone to monitor each and every individual property and system, the most effective way to tackle this issue is to sensitise and equip the public themselves.

With this realisation, V Citizens Action Network (VCAN) and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), in association with National Federation of Engineers for Electrical Safety (NFE) and Savishkar India, and Resource Partner and Secretariat of Civil20 India (C20) Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP) have joined to launch a campaign to re-emphasise the message that “Electrical Safety is Non-negotiable!” as well as to promote the idea of taking personal responsibility for our safety, “Atmanirbhar Suraksha”.

The campaign was launched at a Social Sanchar held on Friday 14th July‚23 at the Anchorage Hall, Royal Bombay Yacht Club, Colaba, and saw participation and discussions from several renowned names including the speakers Shri Rajeev Sharma Deputy Director General BIS; Shri S. S. Warick, Director Maharashtra Fire Services; Shri Hemant Sali, Technical Advisor to Ministry of Roads Highways & Transport, Government of India, for Mumbai Region; Shri V. Ranganathan, IAS (Retd), Former Chief Secretary, Maharashtra and Trustee, VCAN; Shri S. Gopa Kumar, President NFE; Shri Devendra Pai, Chief Academic Officer at Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP) the Secretariat of Civil20 India (C20); Shri Krantisagar More, National Convenor Savishkar India; Ms. Preeti Bhatnagar, Head of Electrotechnical department of BIS; Shri Ritwik Anand, Member Secretary ETD20 BIS.

The audience was addressed by special invitee Shri Ajit Kumar Jain, IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary and Former State Information Commissioner.

Other subject matter experts, including Shri. Ravindra Ambulgekar Chief Fire Officer, Mumbai Fire Brigade along with his senior deputies, and industry representatives joined the campaign launch. Shri. Radhakrishnan Pillai, renowned author of Corporate Chanakya; Shri. Bhupen Chheda from Roman Group; and Directors of Engineering and Chief Engineers from Taj Group of Hotels were also present at the venue among others. A large number of other engineering and departmental staff of the Taj Group of Hotels in groups joined online from their respective hotels.

The Social Sanchar started with Smt. Indrani Malkani, Chairman & Managing Trustee of VCAN, extending a warm welcome to both the in-house and online audience. She briefly introduced VCAN, and its overarching objective of establishing linkages and interactions between Citizens and the Government Authorities that serve them. She then announced that VCAN was privileged to have been recently onboarded on the Civil20 India (C20) platform in addition to its earlier onboarding on Startup20.

She thanked all the organising partners and VCANs collaborators who helped make the event possible. Thereafter, Smt. Malkani invited Shri Krantisagar More, National Convenor, Savishkar India and Member, Alliance Taskforce of the Working Group Startup20 to speak briefly about their organisation, followed by inviting Shri. Devendra Pai, the Chief Academic Officer at Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP), to speak about Civil20 India.

Shri V. Ranganathan, IAS (retd.) former Municipal Commissioner BMC and former Chief Secretary, Maharashtra, as well as Trustee of VCAN, then introduced the Speakers, before sharing some of his own views and experiences on the topic.

To view the Brief Profiles of the Moderator, Special Invitee and all Panellists : click here

Special Invitee Shri Ajit Kumar Jain, IAS (retd.) was then asked to introduce the topic and give some context to the programme’s discussions. Narrating his experiences as the Chairman of the Government of Maharashtra appointed Working Group on fire safety, he outlined several key points and emphasised the need for convergence between fire safety and electrical safety right from the grassroot level to the leadership level.

Shri Ajit Kumar Jain’s detailed address, can be viewed from 27 minutes onward click here

Smt. Malkani then requested Shri S. Gopa Kumar, President NFE, the Moderator of the panel to begin the panel discussion. He began by sharing his concern about the lack of concern that people show towards electrical safety, and informed the audience that there would be a live demonstration of some common electrical equipment later in the programme, before beginning the panel discussion. He then invited Shri Rajeev Sharma Deputy Director General Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to give his opening remarks.

Shri S. S. Warick, Director Maharashtra Fire Services, State of Maharashtra, thereafter shared his remarks from the viewpoint of the Fire Dept., followed by Shri Hemant Sali, Technical Advisor to Ministry of Roads Highways & Transport, Government of India, for Mumbai Region.

Considering the critical issues which were discussed, we urge that it would be best heard directly from the Moderator and the Panellists by viewing the full Panel Discussion and live demonstration video click here

After the discussions by the panellists concluded, Shri Gopa Kumar, made a small presentation and with the assistance of Shri Krish Theobald demonstrated how several common components such as plugs, wires, and switches, could cause fires if the correct standards and specifications were not met. The presentation ( PPT ) was corelated with the demonstration.

To see the PPT click here

Before the start of the live demonstration Smt. Priti Bhatnagar, Head, Electro-technical Dept., BIS, spoke about BIS’s initiatives related to some of the mandatory certification provisions, and urged citizens not to purchase products which are not BIS certified.

Thereafter the live demonstration was conducted.

The demonstration can be click here

Followed by the informative points made and presentations by the panellists, the Q & A session was opened to questions from the in-house audience as well as questions via WhatsApp, SMS, Twitter, YouTube Chat and Facebook Chat, by the online audience.

The Q & A session starts from the 1 hour 55 minutes onward click here

At the start of the Q & A session, Shri Ritwik Anand Member Secretary of EDT20 BIS, reiterated the need for citizens to equip themselves with ways to identify the correct BIS certified products and how products can be checked by using the BIS Care App. Smt. Malkani invited Shri Rajeev Sharma to introduce the BIS Care App and how to use it. A small video on the BIS Care App was shown, accompanying the address by Shri Pramod Kumar Tiwari IAS, Director General, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

They both encouraged the public to download and use the BIS Care App, which can help verify whether a product actually has the ISI certification or not.

The BIS Care App can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Concluding the session, Smt Malkani invited Trustees of VCAN, Shri V. Ranganathan, Capt. Sohrab Kapadia, Capt. Ashok Malkani, Shri Rajan Jayakar, and Shri Deepak Vaswani President of Royal Bombay Yacht Club to join her and present mementos to the Special Invitee, the Moderator and the Panellists. A token of appreciation was also presented to some of the special guests as well.

Thereafter, flags of Civil20 India were distributed to those on the dais by Shri Devendra Pai, following which official photographs were taken with the Trustees of VCAN and all were invited for some light refreshments.

To view the photos of the event, click here

To view the video of the event, click here

To view the PDF of all the press coverages, including PTI, ANI and others, with clickable links, click here

To view the press coverage by Free Press Journal Mumbai, on 15th July’23 click here

**Please be advised, the information in the presentations was prepared by the Shri Gopa Kumar, and was presented at the TogetherVCAN’s Social Sanchar – Panel Discussion held on 14th July 2023.

All Rights are reserved with the Author and due acknowledgement is to be given to the Author should this presentation in part or in full be used by anyone anywhere. The contents of the presentations are by the Author and not by VCAN.

All our articles are periodically updated.