From the classroom to the code: fire safety R&D at IFEM and Siya Habitats

Who is behind IFEM's fire safety R&D?

IFEM is the vocational-degree college of the IFE family. A.K. Pravin Singh started the college in 1996, and the Institute of Fire Engineering (IFE), Nagpur was formally registered in 2001. Since then IFE has trained more than 3,500 fire safety and industrial safety professionals and built a consultancy practice alongside its teaching.

Siya Habitats Pvt. Ltd. is the technology and services division of IFE, Nagpur. It is a fire safety engineering company in Nagpur, and it builds tools that turn fire codes into checks a building can pass every day: monitoring that runs continuously, audits that cite their clauses, answers that refuse rather than guess, and drawing checks for fire NOC submissions. When this section of the IFEM website talks about R&D, it means that work.

What problem is the R&D trying to solve?

Fire safety is checked once a year. Fire happens on the other 364 days. Siya Habitats starts from three gaps:

• Equipment fails quietly. Fire equipment passes inspection on inspection day and then degrades silently. A register entry proves a visit happened, not that the pumps will start.
• Audits live on paper. An auditor on a 20-storey site has no signal, and the applicable checklist differs for every building. The usual answer is a paper pro-forma and a week of retyping.
• Drawings are checked by hand. A submission is checked against a state schedule, a national code and its standards, and the binding requirement depends on the building's occupancy and height.

What are the four Siya Habitats products?

One building, four products, each at a different stage of the building's life:

• Drawing Checker, before it is built. Every requirement for the fire NOC is checked with its clause, and a NOC-worthy drawing set comes out. Read the Drawing Checker article.
• Fire Audit Pro, on site. The auditor gets the checklist for that building, works on site without signal, and the report comes from the same findings. Read the Fire Audit Pro article.
• Fire Watch Pro, every day after. The fire panel, pumps, tanks and fans are watched continuously, so readiness is a live state on a dashboard rather than a line in a register. Read the Fire Watch Pro article.
• Fire Code Expert, whenever a question comes up. Ask in plain words and get the answer with its clause, or a straight statement that the code does not say. Read the Fire Code Expert article.

What principles guide the work?

• Every finding cites its clause, across national, state and city rules and the Indian Standards they call up.
• Refusing is a correct answer. When the code does not hold a value, the tools say so.
• Nobody is shown a question that cannot apply. What a building needs depends on its occupancy, height and use, and the tools respect that.
• Your data stays yours, and you can export it.
• Maharashtra Rules first, with the National Building Code as the floor.

The result, in Siya Habitats' own words: NOC-worthy drawings and a NOC-worthy solution. Every gap found, every rule cited.

Why is this work happening now?

The law moved. In Maharashtra, the 2023 Amendment Act to the Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act, 2006 brought in automated continuous monitoring and a fire and life safety audit every two years, and the Amendment Rules were notified on 12 June 2025. In Delhi, the Delhi Fire Service (Amendment) Rules 2025 were published on 26 May 2026. Buildings have to keep up, and so do the people who look after them.

How does R&D connect to what IFEM teaches?

IFEM's programmes are built around Indian legislation and standards first, including the Factories Act 1948, the OSH Code 2020, the National Building Code 2016 and the relevant Bureau of Indian Standards codes. Under IFEM's CINDER framework, every programme is reviewed each year against NBC updates, Factories Act amendments, faculty consultancy findings and industry feedback.

The rules Siya Habitats works to in its tools are the same rules IFEM students learn to apply by hand. The two sides meet in a simple idea: a fire rule is only useful if someone can check a real building against it, quickly and with the clause in hand. That is true in a classroom case study, and it is true on a 14th floor with no signal.

Where can I read more?

Siya Habitats publishes plain-words fire safety guides for India, with every rule cited to its clause, covering ACMS rules in Maharashtra and Delhi, the fire safety audit checklist, the fire NOC drawing checklist, fire norms by building height, the Form B certificate, and NBC 2016 compared with NBCS 2026. Start at the Siya Habitats fire safety engineering home page, or read about Siya Habitats and its place in the IFE family.