K P Dominic
National President, FSAI
The third edition of Fire & Security India Expo (FSIE) 2019 is close at hand. It is to mark its debut in Mumbai at the Bombay Exhibition Centre (BEC) from 28 February to 2 March 2019. The event is organized by NürnbergMesse India in co-operation with Fire & Security Association of India (FSAI). The trade expo is a multi-dimensional platform that combines solutions for passive, active and organizational fire safety and security management. It is to bring together official experts, architects and developers, MEP consultants, OEMs, security experts, building engineers, members of leading security and fire prevention bodies, as well as fire safety a security representatives from retail, hospitality, healthcare, real estate, facility management, IT-ITEs industry and other stakeholders to exhibit, gather knowledge, exchange ideas, debate innovative perspectives, solutions and products for fire safety and security.
KP Dominic, the National President of FSAI, with 33 years of experience in fire and security domain, is one of the founding members of the association. Since its inception, he has been actively involved in developing the organization both in terms of size and value it can offer to all its members.
KP Dominic is also the founder President of Singapore based company Blue and Gray, a brand building and business development consultancy serving well-known brands across India. He is also the Director of various businesses in Singapore, India, Oman and Dubai. Earlier, he played an important role in building the Honeywell Life Safety business, and establishing successful brands such as Mircom and Secutron in India.
KP Dominic is also the founder President of Singapore based company Blue and Gray, a brand building and business development consultancy serving well-known brands across India. He is also the Director of various businesses in Singapore, India, Oman and Dubai. Earlier, he played an important role in building the Honeywell Life Safety business, and establishing successful brands such as Mircom and Secutron in India.
Here are some excerpts:
SecurityLink India (SLI): This is the third edition of FSIE, what are its USPs (Unique Selling Propositions) over last years, and how do you foresee its success?
KP Dominic: FSAI is always in favor of adopting USP system with consistency and sustainability. In the context of FSIE 2019, we have formulated and carved out an exclusive and dedicated ‘Women & Children Safety Wing’ that is an important step considering the specific vulnerabilities this segment is subjected to. Accordingly, our future training strategy includes the aspect of empowering women and children for their own defense. In addition, we are also trying to inculcate the spirit of an added responsibility and sensitivity among others (members of society) to immediately come for helping them whenever need arises, considering it as a divine call of duty.
SLI: Kindly mention some of the other events that FSAI organizes.
KP Dominic: The significant events that FSAI organizes are Projects Heads, Architects, and Consultants Conclave (PACC), Conferences on Industry specific Safety & Security Challenges, and Motivational Awareness and Training programs for all stakeholders at grass root level. The beneficiaries are members of general public (mostly from rural areas), business organizations, industries, entrepreneurs, consultants, regulatory agencies, academic and professional training institutes, home makers/ school children etc., Such trainings also include practical demonstrations as well as mock-up emergency response exercises. Our association executes conferences/ seminars at international/ national/ state and regional levels. Besides, we conduct relevant security and fire safety contests and award schemes besides staging public functions to honor people who had displayed extra ordinary valor and courage to save lives and assets during difficult and emergency situations. To cap them all there are noble initiatives being taken up by FSAI to carry out blood donation camps as well as marathon races for propagating our pet ‘Surakshit Bharat’ campaign.
SLI: What are the plans and initiatives that you have undertaken under your regime to enhance FSAI as an organization and its bearings on the industry?
KP Dominic: Industry is the back bone of development. Government is also trying to ensure that the ‘Make in India’ initiative becomes a good boost for entrepreneurs zation – Govt. or Private – is duty bound to work together when augmented help is required by the government agencies, especially in times of exigency or emergency. Literally there cannot be any conflict of interest in this regard. In industrial situations this system already exists in the form ‘mutual aid’ arrangement during on-site or off-site emergencies. The most important factor in this situation is that the private agencies should always be ready to compliment Homeland security agencies like Police, home guard or CISF etc., wherever they are posted in the time of requirements.
SLI: How have the safe and smart cities projects been doing so far, and what are the contributions of FSAI as the leading fire and security association of the country?
KP Dominic: The ‘smart city’ concept is still at infant stage and a lot needs to be done to upgrade the available security system, considering the higher fire load, size, occupancy and other related security concerns (both personal and asset). Therefore it is too early to comment about the contributions we have made so far, except to mention that we have taken the related training programs, seminars and workshop in an ‘exclusive category’ and they are prominently included in the 2019 event calendar.
SLI: There are rising cases of hospital fires, collapse of buildings and other lapses in the country. Where do you see the gaps and how can they be filled?
KP Dominic: Yes; this particular agenda is the topmost among all our concerted endeavor and let me proudly state that 10 out of the 40 training programs in 2019 (as per FSAI event calendar) distributed among all chapters/ regions shall focus on this. The December 2018 session held at Bengaluru in this regard won many accolades to FSAI.
SLI: What do laws and authorities of the land provision to check these lapses? Are they stringent and prompt enough, kindly make your recommendations?
KP Dominic: Constitutional provisions and laws have their own significance and edge. But the society at large – which include designers, architects, engineers in charge of project execution, owners/ end users who operate/ maintain these facilities, the internal as well as external fire/ safety service providers and people at large who are the main beneficiaries of the system – have to contribute individually and collectively to implement the statutes in toto, and of course make recommendations for ease of compliance without affecting the purpose conveyed through the existing mandates.
SLI: What would be the impact of the trend of emerging developers and technologies in the field of security and fire safety on the industry, and the country at large? What are your suggestions to the end customers?
KP Dominic: Technology users and developers are definitely keeping pace with the need of the hour by way of reaping maximum benefits of modern techniques in the design, fabrication, assembling and installation of fire and security gadgets. The end users need to be kept continuously updated about the benefits these gadgets bring in through good ‘safety cases’ which are in public domain through internet, electronic and print media. My modest appeal to customers – (remember a customer is also a vendor or supplier at some point) – to maintain trust in the usefulness of the product you purchased; get it duly installed, tested, tried out and periodically serviced/ recertified by the supplier’s own accredited agencies and regularly maintained in house.
SLI: Kindly share your points of view about SecurityLink India.
KP Dominic: I strongly believe in keeping direct access and contact with a large cross section of masses, since individual behavior and actions count a lot for the success of any relevant fire safety and security efforts.
Accordingly the main initiatives being proposed in this direction are organizing maximum number of practical training programs at ground zero; roping in the support of schools and colleges for such activities so that the young and energetic students will take the lead in promoting the programs like true ambassadors; and touching the comparatively more vulnerable categories of women and children when it comes to fire safety and security concerns. In this regard a dedicated and exclusive ‘Women Safety’ task force has recently been created at FSAI.
My final take on the above narratives is that there is no substitute for good communication through better reading material like ‘SecurityLink India periodical.’ Readers’ fraternity only can help it achieve the set vision, mission, goals and objectives of any publications.
Wish SecurityLink India the very best !!
