The men and women who yearn for what they fear, find their playground in the inferno. Not so glamorized as their western counterparts, the Indian firefighters plunge into rooms with walls ablaze and crumbling down, the noxious smoke and the terrified faces, with or without the perfect tools for the job. Spare a moment to delve a little more into the lives those who flirt with fire for their bread and butter. The sad but true story of the Indian firemen The firemen of Mumbai are believed to be the employees of one of the richest civic bodies of the nation. However, quite interestingly, they are not entitled to any insurance scheme for paying hospital bills for in case they’re injured at work. If you think it is shocking that firefighters are not entitled to insurance or medical claim, you should know that until 2014, there was no procedure for the fire brigade authorities to admit an injured firefighter to a private hospital even if the public hospitals are far away. Vishwajit Nikam, Additional Divisional Fire Officer, was seriously injured at work in 1992 when his ambulance driver drove him to a nearby private hospital as there were no public hospitals around. The fire brigade filed a charge-sheet against the driver for saving Nikam’s life and Nikam, on the other hand, shed Rs 1 lakh on his own for his treatment.

What’s going on at Deonar

It has been days since the fire at Deonar was started on March 19 and it is still flaming. Now, the toxic smoke of the fire at the dumping grounds at Deonar is making the firefighters ill with two of them already being hospitalized. It may just be a part and parcel of the job but the firefighters have been having their mid-day meals surrounded by the murderous venom in the gases.

With the back-breaking work hours, the situation cannot even allow them the mandatory rest period after every big fire and the limited number of face-masks is making the situation even worse for the firefighters of Mumbai.

The joke in the name of risk allowance

Some may argue that the authorities are not entirely careless about the fighters’ conditions as they do grant an emergency allowance to the men out there. However, the amount paid as risk allowance was a mere pittance of Rs 50 per month until 2013 when after a protest from the employees, the allowance was revised to Rs 500 a month which still not enough considering what these men and women put themselves through.