No. Buildings/ premises specified in schedule 3 of the Gujarat Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures (Amendment) Rules, 2021 are required to have Fire Safety Certificate. For other buildings/ premises it is optional. Just to give an illustration, for residential buildings, if height is more than 15 meters, such a certificate is required, and if height is less than 15 meters, self-compliance is required.

Scenario 1: The new upcoming buildings/ premises: As a builder/developer/owner/ occupier, for a new building, you need to first apply for Fire Safety Plan Approval (FSPA), followed by Fire Safety Certificate Approval (FSCA) – application for both can be made online itself through the Guj Fire Safety Compliance Portal i.e. https://gujfiresafetycop.in. After issuance of the Fire Safety Certificate and before expiry of the 3 (three) years period, one has to get the Fire Safety Certificate “renewed” by applying for a Fire Safety Certificate Renewal (FSCR) application and has to obtain a FSCR Certificate and thereafter, every 2 (two) years such a certificate has to be obtained before the last one expires. Along with renewal, the owner/occupier has to also arrange for a six-monthly building inspection as well as six monthly mock fire and emergency drills with the help of a professional called Fire Safety Officer (FSO). Please visit the https://gujfiresafetycop.in portal and login and search for the building to see the pending inspection, renewals etc.

Scenario 2: The existing building with Fire Safety Certificate (earlier called Fire NOC): As an owner/ occupier, before expiry of the existing Fire Safety, one has to get the Fire Safety Certificate “renewed” by applying for a Fire Safety Certificate Renewal (FSCR) application and has to obtain a FSCR Certificate and thereafter, every two years such a certificate has to be obtained before the last one expires. Along with renewal, the owner/occupier has to also arrange for a six-monthly building inspection as well as six monthly mock fire and emergency drills with the help of a professional called Fire Safety Officer (FSO). Please visit the https://gujfiresafetycop.in portal and login and search for the building to see the pending inspection, renewals etc.

The detail processes and requirements for issuance and renewal of FSC is stated in the Gujarat Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Regulations, 2022.

Please note, fire safety is an important subject to which Government of Gujarat pays great attention and there are penalties for late renewals, late inspections and late mock fire and emergency drill. So, you should comply fire safety related obligations in a timely manner.

If your building has never obtained a Fire Safety Certificate, please apply for a fire safety certificate, failing which appropriate action can be taken against you and your building.

It is the choice of the applicant to go for either a single building or all the buildings within a complex or premise whose ownership or management is common.

No, building fire safety is a concept which is associated with a building as a whole as fire hazard is related to building in its totality, including surroundings, and not a particular portion of it. So, you have to make other stakeholders and owners also agree for it and any one of occupier of a building (or upcoming building) can apply for a fire safety certificate.

In case of change in building plan, a Fire Safety Plan Approval (FSPA) has to be taken again from the authority.

Normally, such deviations from the building plan are not allowed under any circumstances. If there are any such changes, please mention them in remarks in the particular section and sub-section when you apply for the Fire Safety Certificate Approval (FSCA) with detailed reasons, mentioning in change in building rules if any and so on. The concerned authority shall take a call whether or not to allow such changes.

Such instances may occur due to problems in payment gateway. Generally, such transactions are reverted within a couple of days by the bank. You should try again and pay the fee again.

No, after promulgation of the Gujarat Fire Prevention & Life Safety Measures Regulations, 2022, issuance of Fire Safety Plan Approval (FSPA) and Fire Safety Certificate Approval (FSCA) shall be done by the Gujarat State Fire Prevention Officials while Fire Safety Certificate Renewal (FSCR) along with six monthly building inspection and fire and emergency mock drills shall be done by a trained and certified professional called the “Fire Safety Officer (FSO)”. FSO is not a government employee, but is authorised to carry out certain activities. Further, final authority over FSCR issued by the FSO shall remain with the Gujarat State Fire Prevention Officials. If an FSO has issued a certificate wrongly, such a certificate can be revoked by Fire Department.

The Fire Safety Officer (FSO) can either be individual or an agency/ firm/ company having employees with suitable qualifications as provided in Section 12.0 of the Gujarat Fire Prevention & Life Safety Measures Act 2013.

The portal https://gujfiresafetycop.in has an online real time directory of all Fire Safety Officers (FSOs). You can simply go to the portal and search for FSOs there. You need to simply search and talk to a concerned FSO over the contact number provided. You can filter by your building location and talk to the officer and negotiate various terms including charges of services that FSO will offer.

First, you can search for the neighbouring regions/ districts and can request a particular FSO to modify his or her working regions/districts in the online portal https://gujfiresafetycop.in through his or her profile and to include the region/ district where your building is located in the list of his or her ‘List of Preferred Districts’. If that doesn’t work out, you should contact the concerned Chief Fire Officer or Regional Fire Officer or lodge a grievance through the portal.

There are three categories of Fire Safety Officers (FSO):

FSO - General (FSO-G)

FSO - Advance (FSO-A)

FSO - Specialist (FSO-S)

Buildings have been categorized in various classes and different FSOs have different jurisdictions over such buildings. For example, FSO General can inspect certain types of residential buildings, commercial buildings and so on as mentioned in the Application Guide. For detailed classification, please refer the Application Guide given on the Guj Fire Safety CoP portal https://gujfiresafetycop.in.

As per Section 46 of the Gujarat Fire Prevention & Life Safety Measures Act - 2013, Fire Safety Officer (FSO) is not a Government of Gujarat official.

Yes. FSO Specialist can do the works of FSO-Advance and FSO-General, but reverse is not true as an FSO of higher category only can do work of FSOs of lower category and reverse is not true. System will automatically suggest type of eligible FSOs based on category of your building.

Yes, you can change an FSO for your building block anytime from your profile.

Yes, you have to pay to an FSO for his or her services in the same manner you pay an Advocate or Chartered Accountant. He is a private professional and you can negotiate by calling him (number available in portal, go to Find FSO) for various services like – pending renewal of Fire Safety Certificate, schedules inspection, mock drill etc

Yes, there are statutory fees which you need to pay to avail the services through this portal. Details of fee are given in the Gujarat Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Regulations, 2022. The fee shall reflect while making an online application via. https://gujfiresafetycop.in. Please note, the fee mentioned here are statutory fee which are over and above the fees to be charged by the FSO for his services.

No, an FSO can only do renewal, inspection and can conduct fire safety drill in buildings which are mapped to his or her duties and cannot issue a Fire Safety Plan Approval (FSPA) or Fire Safety Certificate Approval (FSCA).

FSCOP is the end-to-end Integrated Online System on which you can lodge your complaint and can track it in real time. You have to just login and have to go to Help section.

You can submit your valuable feedback on the https://gujfiresafetycop.in portal by logging into your account at the portal by going to the Help section.

You will receive an email update with the hyperlink of PDF of your final certificate, if approved by concerned authority and you can also find the same by log into your account at the portal https://gujfiresafetycop.in

Yes, they are required. Along with renewal, the owner/occupier has to also arrange for a six-monthly building inspection as well as six monthly mock fire and emergency drills with the help of a professional called Fire Safety Officer (FSO). Please visit the https://gujfiresafetycop.in portal and login and search for the building to see the pending inspection, renewals etc.

All existing data of previously physically issued Fire Safety Certificates has been entered into the new system and hence, you can now simply log in to the portal https://gujfiresafetycop.in and search for your building to apply for a renewal of the existing Fire Safety Certificate. Now onwards, all fire safety service-related activities shall be online. In case you don’t find your building details on portal, please contact the concerned fire safety authority office (Chief Fire Officer in case municipal corporation area or the Regional Fire Officer in case of the non-municipal corporation area). If the Chief Fire Officer or the Regional Fire Officer is not able to address your concerns, you can lodge a grievance through the portal itself.

In case you don’t find your building details on portal, please contact the concerned fire safety authority office (Chief Fire Officer in case municipal corporation area or the Regional Fire Officer in case of the non-municipal corporation area). If the Chief Fire Officer or the Regional Fire Officer is not able to address your concerns, you can lodge a grievance through the portal itself.