4.0 Brief Introduction:

During regular scrutiny of the Purchase Orders, a high value order of Virtual Reality (VR) Laboratory was selected for investigation due to an incident of fire.

4.1 Background:

Virtual Realty Laboratory is a state of art facility established in 2011 and it is first of its kind of facility in the shipbuilding industry. VR Lab is extensively used for 3D projection of CAD model in immersive environment to facilitate the clear understanding of the complicated arrangements in the compartment.

The VR lab has been acquired in the year 2011, by SB Design department and subsequently upgraded and Fire Protection System was installed. The VR lab was maintained by a Contractor after commissioning in year 2011 upto 2019.

During a fire incident in year 2018, the VRL along with the furniture items were damaged.

The fire detection and suppression system of VR Lab commissioned in the month of Nov’2017, did not activate at the time of fire incident. The said system was installed by the contractor and it was under maintenance contract with them till the fire incident.

Following Observations/Conclusion were drawn:

(i) In spite of fire protection contract, fire could not be arrested, thereby defeating the purpose of the placement of the contract for Fire Fighting System along with Maintenance Contract.

(ii) Insurance claim with the help of Insurance Intermediaries was delayed.

(iii) Fire Order promulgated earlier needs to be reviewed and updated.

4.2 Implementation:

Following systemic improvements suggested by Vigilance Department are implemented.

(i) Fire order may be reviewed or committee may be formed for reviewing the same. It appears that Fire order has not been prepared judiciously as all responsibilities have been shifted to respective Executive-In-charges of the office building, workshops, stores but not on Fire Dept.

(ii) Assigning the responsibility of “internal firefighting system” solely on the OIC of the dept. may be reviewed. The OICs have to carry out other duties assigned to them which may be related to MDL business. Entrusting the internal firefighting system solely on them does not appears to be reasonable, especially when there is a full-fledged Fire Dept. Further, the OICs are not trained/qualified for firefighting.

(iii) Identification of the Vital Installations, regular visit of fire fighters and monitoring by Fire officers are to be recorded in “Occurrence Register”/Book separately. The number of rounds/visits for Vital installations especially during silent hours to be increased and recorded in Occurrence Register/Book.

(iv) Monthly periodic maintenance of firefighting equipment for vital installation needs to be carried out even if the OEM recommendation is for more than one-month gap.

4.3 Impact and Benefits:

With the implementation of above mentioned systemic improvement following are the Impact and Benefit:

(i) The Fire Order will be updated, which includes the demarcation of role & responsibilities.

(ii) Identification of the Vital Installations of MDL for special monitoring by Fire officers.

(iii) This will lead to minimise the loss and any untoward incident.

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