MUMBAI: Sahara India's office complex and godowns in Mumbai suburb Goregaon suffered heavy damages when a fire broke out at 6:02 pm yesterday.

The blaze engulfed a 45000 sq feet store house -cum- godown approximately, according to Mumbai's fire control duty officers. City fire chief A D Jhandwal visited the spot and mentioned that a senior investigation team will be visiting the site today for a detailed examination. The cause of the fire is not yet known.

No human casualties have been reported. The corporate office complex also housed the airline office and the human resources cell. According to eyewitnesses, the employees were evacuated as soon as the mishap occurred. Unconfirmed reports add that training sessions were being conducted for Sahara News. Sahara is planning to launch several news launch in mid-February.

Eight fire engines and six tankers from the adjoining areas were pressed into action. The fire was brought under control by 7:45 pm. Duty officers say that the initial examination showed that that official records; audio and video equipment; were destroyed. The Asian Age (Mumbai) reported that the losses were to the tune of Rs four million. Sahara Samay Mumbai head Rajeev Bajaj said this afternoon that imported equipment specially flown down for Sahara Samay Mumbai has been destroyed.

The area that was gutted also included the airconditioning plant, says Bajaj. An inventory is being currently drawn up to assess the damage, he says.

Launched on 28 March 2000, Sahara TV is a 24 hour free-to-air Hindi entertainment satellite channel offering meaningful programmes with a difference to over 40 million C & S (Cable and Satellite) households in India with added reach in over 66 countries. It has fully-equipped state-of-art studios in Noida and Mumbai, and its own earth-station at Noida for direct uplinking from India.

In December, the Subrata Roy-owned Sahara group successfully launched its own earth station in the country at Noida, near New Delhi.

Sahara TV has already started to uplink using the station, earning it the distinction of being the first Hindi entertainment satellite channel to do so directly from India.

The first-of-its-kind earth station will enable the channel to concurrently uplink stream of 8-plus satellite channels directly from India. Officials claimed that this would go a great way in facilitating Sahara's news channels plan when it gets operational.

Sahara Airlines Ltd. took to the skies for the first time on 3 December 1993.