Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry invited Syed Kashif Shah, Director, Emergency & Disaster Management, MCI and discussed with him the concerns of the business community on the firefighting rules of MCI. He briefed him about the difficulties being faced by the business community in implementing the firefighting rules of MCI in industrial and commercial buildings. He said that it was not possible to implement these rules in the existing industrial & commercial buildings as it needed a lot of changes in building structures. He stressed that MCI should implement these rules in new buildings and amend them in consultation with stakeholders to make them practicable for old and existing commercial and industrial buildings. He proposed that a Committee comprising representatives of ICCI and MCI should be formed to review and amend the building codes and firefighting requirements of MCI to make them implementable in the existing industrial and commercial buildings.

Syed Kashif Shah, Director, Emergency & Disaster Management, MCI said that he was not authorized to amend the firefighting rules. However, he assured that he would convey the reservations of the business community on these rules to the relevant authority of MCI. He said that MCI wanted to implement these firefighting rules in public and private sector buildings in a uniform way for the safety of occupants and assets.

Faad Waheed Senior Vice President, Azhar ul Islam Zafar Vice President ICCI, Khalid Iqbal Malik Group Leader, Zafar Bakhtawari, Muhammad Ejaz Abbasi, Khalid Chaudhry and others also highlighted the difficulties being faced by the business community in implementing the firefighting rules of MCI and stressed for amending them to make them affordable and implementable for business community.