KARACHI  - With over only three dozen fire tenders being operated by Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) to cater the needs of the spiraling city of approximately 20 million people, the majority of buildings are also devoid of fire-safety measuresThe city administration has never attempted to take up the matter and adopt necessary steps to avoid any untoward incident.Talking to journalists during a visit to the blazed factory in Baldia Town that claimed over 289 lives, Administrator Karachi Muhammad Hussain Syed conceded that majority of city buildings lacked fire safety system besides city fire department also lacking modern gadgets and equipment for prompt rescue operations.Karachi has witnessed several arson incidents in past in which several human beings lost their lives, but the massive loss of lives in Baldia factory blaze implies that the concerned government agencies were inactive and unconcerned towards the grave public-concerning matter.One of the incidents was Empress Market blaze occurred a year ago that had reduced more than 100 shops to ashes; however the loss could have been minimised had the fire-safety system was installed at the market. Senior official at the city fire department, wanting not to be named, said buildings here in the city were not equipped with fire safety systems and emergency exits that hamper speedy working of fire fighters in case of emergencies. Business community and other stakeholders also don’t equip their buildings with fire safety measures turning it to be serious concern. Thousands of other buildings in the city have no fire safety systems where massive public movement is seen almost every day.  Prominent among them are Rainbow Centre Saddar, Uni Plaza, Madina Shopping Plaza adjacent to Victoria Shopping Centre, commonly known as Zainab Market and Dolmen Centre, Tariq Road. Besides, numerous shopping plazas, official buildings, government office are also operating under the same conditions.The official insisted that his department should have around 200 fire tenders but currently they have 43 in operation while some seven to eight are out of order.There are total 23 fire stations in the city including the emergency response centre Hawks Bay, while 43 to 45 fire tenders, three snorkels and dousers are currently in working but still it does not meet the requirement, he said. Another senior official of the fire department stressed the need to increase available resources that not only is affecting working mechanism but also damaging the reputation of the department.In 2008, the then chief controller of Karachi Building Control Authority had announced to launch such an operation against buildings constructed in non-compliance of relevant laws and lacking fire safety measures and emergency exits, but no productive results could emerge out of it that time and no such action was taken subsequently in last four years.