Nagpur: In a glaring illustration of bureaucratic paralysis, Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s (NMC) Rs 15.10-crore firefighting giant, acquired to strengthen emergency response in high-rise buildings, remains grounded months after arriving in the city in late 2025, awaiting mandatory vehicle registration.
The 70-metre hydraulic platform, the tallest rescue apparatus in Central India, was procured from Finland-based Bronto Skylift OyAB through Mumbai-based M/s Brijbasi Fire Safety Pvt Ltd. Besides the massive purchase cost, NMC incurred another Rs 4.72 crore towards customs duty. Yet, despite this enormous public expenditure, the machine remains unavailable for operational deployment, trapped in a maze of technical verification and regulatory clearances.
The prolonged delay has raised serious questions over administrative preparedness and coordination, particularly when Nagpur’s skyline is rapidly transforming into a high-rise landscape and the city’s firefighting infrastructure is expected to keep pace with mounting vertical development.
Foreign specifications trigger registration deadlock
Senior officials of the NMC Fire and Emergency Services Department attribute the impasse to the newly introduced centralised online vehicle registration system and the specialised foreign-manufactured equipment.
Since both the chassis and hydraulic superstructure were manufactured overseas, their technical specifications and design parameters were not readily available in the Indian Regional Transport Office (RTO) digital database. The mismatch has effectively stalled the registration process.
“Had the traditional offline registration system been in place, the formalities would have been completed swiftly,” a senior fire official explained, adding that the online portal requires formal technical validation before foreign-manufacturer specifications can be incorporated in accordance with Indian transport norms.
File travels from Nagpur to Pune, then Delhi
In an attempt to break the deadlock, the Nagpur RTO forwarded the vehicle’s technical dossier to the testing and certification wing in Pune for verification of its specifications.
Following technical scrutiny in Pune, the file was subsequently escalated to New Delhi for central regulatory approval. Officials confirmed that the dossier is awaiting final clearance from Delhi, after which the Nagpur RTO can issue the registration number.
Until this final approval comes through, the expensive rescue platform cannot be formally inducted into the operational firefighting fleet.
High-rise Nagpur waits for its tallest rescue machine
The delay assumes alarming significance against the backdrop of Nagpur’s expanding high-rise development. The NMC has cleared more than 190 buildings exceeding 40 metres in height in recent years, significantly increasing the demands on emergency response capabilities.
With the 70-metre platform immobilised, firefighters continue to depend on the existing 32-metre and 42-metre hydraulic ladders for high-rise rescue and firefighting operations.
The situation exposes an uncomfortable contradiction: while the civic administration has invested crores in acquiring an advanced firefighting machine capable of reaching towering buildings, procedural bottlenecks continue to keep it out of service.
For a city witnessing rapid vertical expansion, every month of delay in operationalising such critical emergency equipment raises concerns over preparedness, public safety and the ability of firefighters to respond effectively when disaster strikes.
