India, Sept. 11 -- Launched in June in the wake of the fire at an illegally operated B&B facility in South Delhi's Malviya Nagar that claimed at least 23 lives, the Gurugram fire department's citywide fire-safety survey remains 50% complete, with officials attributing it to severe shortage of staff and field personnel.

An official said the same teams being required to juggle fire-safety inspections and emergency firefighting duties.

"Seven teams have been formed to conduct the surveys. However, these teams are also deployed for firefighting operations, which affects the pace of the survey at times," said Narendra Yadav, fire safety officer (FSO) Sector 29, Gurugram.

Officials said Gurugram has a strength of 248 officers and fire fighte...