Death traps: How coaching centres put lives of students at risk

Delhi coaching centres: A year after the devastating fire in Mukherjee Nagar’s four-storey commercial building, which injured 61 students, authorities remain apathetic to the plight of UPSC aspirants despite repeated protests and political outcry as coaching centres continue to flout safety norms, building bye-laws and accountability in the national capital.

A few months after that incident in June, another fire broke out at a women’s paying guest (PG) facility in Mukherjee Nagar in September due to a short circuit in the power meter panel near the building’s only stair case, resulting in several injuries.

This incident occurred just a day after the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) began a sealing drive against coaching institutes operating without a fire NOC.

Earlier, in January 2020, the roof of a coaching centre collapsed in Bhajanpura, North East Delhi, killing five people, including four students, and injuring fourteen others.

Action, Too Late

Demolition of encroachments above stormwater drains

Desilting of drains

Identification of properties operating with illegal basements

Sealing of 19 coaching centres in Old Rajinder Nagar and Mukherjee Nagar

Notices sent to centres, 60 in South Zone

Recently, the death of three civil services aspirants due to flooding in the basement of a coaching centre in Central Delhi has raised serious concerns about the effectiveness of safety norms enforcement by relevant agencies.

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The agencies despite being aware of the situation did nothing to pre vent such tragedy but kept passing the buck. A survey by Delhi Fire Services revealed that 461 coaching centres lack basic fire preventive measures, highlighting a systemic failure. Basements doubling as storage spaces, libraries, and classrooms have become a contentious issue, with hundreds of coaching centres in Delhi’s hubs operating illegally.

According to Delhi Police, 583 coaching institutes are operating in the national capital. Earlier in the Delhi High Court, the Delhi government had stated that over 95% of these coaching centres lack the mandatory fire safety certificate from the department, despite it being a statutory requirement.

Patriot visited several coaching institutes and libraries operating in the national capital to take stock of the situation at the ground level regarding arrangements for safety of students and whether they are following the rules and regulations.

During the visit to the tragedy-hit Old Rajinder Nagar, it was revealed that apart from Rau’s IAS Study Circle coaching centre, other renowned institutes including KK Study Group, Maluka IAS, Edge IAS, KSG India, and others have the libraries and classrooms functioning in the basement only, flouting all norms as stated in Unified Building Bye-Laws (UBBL) 2016.

As per UBBL, only parking and storage is legally allowed in basements in Old Rajinder Nagar.

However, there is special provision for the education institutes in the UBBL which states that in educational buildings (schools or colleges), a basement or cellar room may be designed, constructed, altered, con verted, or used for the purpose of study or instruction, provided it meets fire safety requirements.

Meanwhile the professionals allowed to function in the basement are doctors, lawyers, architects, chartered accountants, company secretaries, cost and works accountants, engineers, town planners, media professionals and documentary film makers.

In Old Rajinder Nagar, libraries were being run from the basement which is totally illegal. The institutes there also neglected safety norms such as no proper ventilation, no proper arrangements to ensure drain age water does not enter basement.

In Mukherjee Nagar, all coaching institutions have had their shutters closed, in lieu of the crackdown on these centres by the Delhi government. To avoid suffering any loss, all institutions have shut down their enquiry centres as well as their class rooms.

Apart from the infamous Old Rajindra Nagar and Mukherjee Nagar, there are multiple hubs in other areas in the national capital where people are running libraries in the basement by ignoring all the norms.

Unified Building Bye-Laws (UBBL) 2016

Minimum Dimensions: Basement height and width must be at least 2.4 metre.

Ventilation: Must provide adequate ventilation.

Ground Floor Height: Maximum 1.5 m above average surrounding ground level.

Drainage: Prevent surface drainage from entering the basement.

Waterproofing: Walls and floors must be watertight and damp-proofed.

Access: Provide access via the main or alternate staircase.

Fire Clearance: Required for buildings with more than one basement.

In Patel Nagar, hundreds of libraries are operating out of which most of them are functional from the basements of the residential buildings.

During the visit, 13 libraries were found operating from the basement including Brainstorm Library, Rise and Shine Study Place, Aspirant Library, Maa Bharati Library, Grow Up Library, The Uma Library, 7/46, Book lounge- 2 Library, Achievers Library, Wings Library, The Genius Library, Variance Library, Study Bunker Library, and Aspire Study Space.

The condition at Patel Nagar was also the same with no rules and regulation being followed there.

Protest erupts across Delhi

Students of the coaching centres were sitting on an indefinite hunger strike demanding justice, wanting national capital.

Speaking to Patriot, Naman Pandey, a resident of Orai in Uttar Pradesh, who had joined Vajiram in 2022, said, “All of these basements have been functioning like this since I have been studying here. Every time during monsoons there is a flood-like situation here and nobody bats an eye, although we have been alerting the authorities for a fairly long time. The situation remains the same for a stretch of a kilometre from Edge IAS to Vajiram & Ravi, covering a significant stretch of Bada Bazaar Road.”

“There are probably only two or three institutes which function without a basement and they use the entire building to suck money out of their students. Only recently, Drishti IAS was caught for flouting the norms and had their basement sealed. On the other hand, other institutes such as Vision IAS and Sanskriti IAS have also been accused of holding classes inside the basement,” said an aspirant on the condition of anonymity.

Much more than the issue regarding the flood-like situation, it is the situation concerning their living conditions that has become a significant cause for concern among them. Most students residing around these coaching centres belong to states across the country and opt to stay here as paying guests or sharing flats.

The students said that the PG accommodations in themselves are extremely expensive and charge a nightmare to accommodate them.

“We have to pay somewhere around Rs 8,000 as rent for a single room which we share with three other people. In total, we pay around Rs 30,000, while also paying two month’s brokerage to the broker even when we do not get any amenity worth the amount,” said Brijesh Singh, a student of Sanskriti IAS.

“On a single floor, there are 12 people staying with a sheet of ply wood separating one ‘room’ from the other, with barely enough space to stand. On top of that, all 12 of us use the same toilet for our needs,” said an aspirant on the condition of anonymity.

A student who did not wish to be named, and hails from Bihar, said, “The students don’t have any option apart from opting for library as the rents are skyrocketing and an individual coming from a middle-class family can’t afford it. It costs around 20 thousand rupees for a 6X4 room.”

“So, three to four people rent the room and we just visit them to sleep. Otherwise, we stay the whole day at the library only to study,” he added.

Also read: Delhi coaching centre deaths: Rescue divers came two hours after the incident, survivors recount

Steps taken by the MCD

Following the deaths, the MCD has proceeded to demolish encroaching ramps on top of stormwater drains in front of Rau’s IAS Study Circle, to proceed with the desilting of drains.

They have started the identification of properties operating with illegal basements, sealing 19 proper ties in Mukherjee Nagar and Old Rajinder Nagar. On the other hand, notices have been sent to multiple other properties, with 60 being sent in the South Zone alone.

Concerning the desilting of drains, Ashwani Kumar, the Commissioner of MCD, had said, “In drains deeper than 4ft, the work was carried out by an outsourced agency, while drains less than 4ft deep were cleaned by the MCD. However, the Rajinder Nagar drain could not be cleared because the stormwater drain was completely covered, which is a problem across Delhi,” he said.

Following the tragedy which led to three deaths, the MCD terminated the contract of a junior engineer and suspended an assistant engineer.

(The article is written by Kushan Niyogi and Saurav Gupta)