New Delhi: A fire broke out on the rooftop of North Block on Monday, sending thick black smoke above the historic building on Raisina Hill and prompting the deployment of six fire tenders. The blaze was subsequently extinguished, and no casualties were reported in the initial accounts from officials.
The Delhi Fire Services received a call about smoke coming from the building at around 11.10am, following which firefighting vehicles were dispatched. Officials linked the incident to repair work, although the early accounts differed over the equipment or material that had caught fire.
According to a fire department statement reported by NDTV, welding was underway on the roof when a suspected short circuit triggered a fire in equipment described as an “AC boiler”. The department said the fire had been brought under control.
A separate police account, reported by Aaj Tak, said an old plastic water tank on the terrace had caught fire while labourers were carrying out renovation work. According to that account, the workers extinguished the flames themselves.
The available reports did not establish whether these descriptions referred to different elements of the same rooftop fire. While officials confirmed that the situation had been controlled, a detailed assessment of the damage was not available in the reports reviewed.
The member of Parliament, Milind Deora, drew attention to the smoke in a post on X, saying he had noticed it rising from behind North Block while travelling to Parliament. He expressed concern for those at the site and called for a swift emergency response.
North Block, historically associated with the Union home and finance ministries, is part of the administrative complex on Raisina Hill. The incident comes during a wider transition in which government offices have been moving to newer premises and the historic North and South Block buildings have been earmarked for a museum, as RNA Media had reported earlier.
The Union cabinet approved their inclusion in the planned Yuge Yugeen Bharat National Museum in February this year, alongside the shift to Seva Teerth and Kartavya Bhavans. However, the incident reports did not establish whether the rooftop repairs were connected to that museum project.