Four fire engines reached within minutes of the incident, although, they had to struggle to enter the crowded service lane of Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg. The service lane doubles up as a parking lot for all the offices in the area. “Any delay can prove to be serious. If it was a major fire then the delay could have been fatal. We will be writing to the traffic police and other authorities on the issue of parking in the service lane,” Chief Fire Officer R C Sharma said.

The fire broke out in the basement, where welding being carried out caused a short circuit in the air-conditioning ducts. It was contained by 3.25 pm. According to employees, who were evacuated soon after smoke filled the basement and the first floor of the building, workers had been repairing air-conditioners and when the power came back on, there was a short circuit.

“It’s good that no one was injured,” P C Shukla, a reporter with TOI, said. “Everything is under control now.”

Decongestion
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has been working on a plan to decongest the service lane for some time now. The MCD had proposed constructing a multi-level underground parking beneath the Shaheed Park next to Ferozshah Kotla stadium. This ambitious plan has been under discussion for more than a year now.

The MCD had initially proposed ‘stack-parking’, which was rejected on aesthetic grounds. A multi-level underground parking was planned next, which was to be built on a BOT basis. The MCD floated an expression of interest six months ago but no private construction firm came forward. “We are at present trying to raise fund ourselves for the project,” a senior MCD official said.

The project is currently in the final stages of evaluation, after which it will go for financial clearance. The proposal will then have to be cleared by the House and Standing Committee.

“We plan to build a three-level underground parking that will be able to accommodate 600 cars and will be built at a cost of Rs 60 crore roughly. Construction on the project will begin soon,” MCD spokesperson Deep Mathur said.

Traffic issues
The traffic police too have voiced their concern about the crowded service lane in the past.

In May last year, when Ferozshah Kotla hosted an IPL match, the resulting space crunch had left the traffic police sweating. The traffic police had sent a missive to the MCD about the situation. “We were told they were coming up with a multi-level underground parking to free the service lane almost a year ago but nothing has been done about it since then,” Joint Commissioner Traffic Police S N Shrivastava said.