Despite arriving in Nagpur in late 2025 to bolster high-rise emergency response from Fire and Emergency Service, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s (NMC) flagship 70-metre hydraulic platform remains grounded, awaiting mandatory vehicle registration. Procured at a massive outlay of Rs 15.10 crore, alongside Rs 4.72 crore in customs duty from Finland-based Bronto Skylift OyAB via Mumbai-based M/s Brijbasi

 

Fire Safety Pvt Ltd, the tallest rescue apparatus in Central India has been stranded in bureaucratic and technical clearance delays for months. According to senior officials from the Fire and Emergency Services Department, the registration bottleneck stems from a newly introduced centralised on-line vehicle registration portal coupled with the specialised equipment’s foreign origin. Because both the chassis and hydraulic superstructure are manufactured overseas, their exact technical specifications and design parameters were not pre-mapped onto the Indian Regional Transport Office (RTO) digital database. “Had the traditional off-line registration process been in place, the formalities would have been completed swiftly,” a senior fire official explained.

 

“Under the new on-line portal, foreign manufacturer chassis specifications cannot be entered automatically and require formal technical validation to match Indian transport norms.” To resolve this digital database mismatch, the local RTO forwarded the vehicle’s technical dossier to the testing and certification wing in Pune for specification verification. Following Pune’s technical scrutiny, the file was routed in New Delhi for central regulatory approval. Officials confirmed that the dossier is currently awaiting final sign-off from Delhi before the Nagpur RTO can generate the registration number. The prolonged administrative delay comes at a critical juncture as Nagpur’s skyline rapidly verticalises, with NMC having cleared over 190 high-rise buildings exceeding 40 metres in recent years. The pending registration prevents this vital life-saving machine from entering active fleet service of the Fire Department, forcing firefighters to rely on existing 32-metre and 42-metre ladders.