Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav on Thursday said that the loss of lives in the fire incident at Palam on Wednesday could have been averted with alert rescue operations.
In this regard, Yadav on Thursday wrote a letter to Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu, demanding that a committee be constituted to probe the devastating fire in Palam with request for all possible measures to to be taken to prevent recurrence of such incidents of fire in the city.
He said that the committee should also prepare a detailed report on what measures should be taken by the government to prevent fires in slums and other places in Delhi.
Yadav pointed out that during the last ten years, from 2016-2025, around 4,652 people lost their lives to fire in the city, while in the past two and a half months of 2026 alone, 24 people perished in fire incidents that could have been averted, he claimed.
He alleged that the city has become the capital of accidents as indicated by recent fire incidents.
According to the Congress leader, the growing number of deaths due to fire, falling into drains, building collapses, and other mishaps is something that exposes official apathy and governance failure.
He said that the CM and her Cabinet colleagues have been announcing future plans ignoring the ground reality that needs urgent solutions.
He claimed that had the fire engines reached the accident site on time and had the equipment functioned well, several innocent lives, including that of children, could have been saved.
According to Yadav, the tragic incident also exposed shortage of manpower and equipment with the Fire Department as there were few fire tenders available compared to the requirement, he claimed.
The Congress leader claims that the fire services has been reduced to just a name sake department without sufficient manpower and machines, and expressing surprise he stated, claiming that there has been no recruitment of new Fire Station Officers since 2012.