The tragic loss of life in the collapse of a five-storey building in Delhi has again exposed the rot in civic administration and the abject failure of the political leadership. The government suspended a deputy commissioner and four engineers to douse public rage. It is a vain attempt by the BJP leadership — from the Mayor and Chief Minister to Union ministers — to absolve itself of governance lapses at multiple levels. Given the centralisation of power at the top, even the Prime Minister cannot escape moral responsibility as the ruling party garners votes in his name.
At least two floors of the building were clearly unauthorised and illegal. How did the civic body permit construction in blatant violation of building by-laws? Allegations of corruption and administrative lapses have been rife for years. Collusion between builders and civic officials, both enjoying political patronage, is an open secret. Successive governments are guilty of varying degrees of abnegation of responsibility, if not active connivance. Over the years, the BJP government managed to quell criticism, insulate itself from electoral consequences, and allegedly defang anti-corruption watchdogs. Consequently, a sense of impunity prevails at all levels of the political establishment, which has resulted in all-pervasive retail corruption.
Another glaring proof of institutional failure was the desperate scrambling for basic facts and data relating to the collapsed building, despite pompous claims of digital governance and paperless e-office systems. Were those claims true, then critical information — such as the owner of the building, details of approval granted for construction of the original building and subsequent illegal addition of new floors, the relevant commercial licenses, and payment of property taxes, commercial tariff rates for utilities — would be available at a click of a mouse. There appears to be a noticeable mismatch between high-decibel marketing bordering on propaganda and ground reality.
The Delhi government did not heed the warning bells sounded earlier in the city and elsewhere by recurring accidents relating to commercial buildings in general and PG hostels, coaching centres in particular. Be it the fire accident in a dubious Malviya Nagar hotel in which over 20 guests were killed or the fatal drowning of three students in a coaching centre library in an illegal basement. These avoidable tragedies highlighted the flagrant violation of fire safety norms and illegal construction and hazardous modifications made beyond the permitted levels, which adversely impact a building’s structural stability.
Now the Delhi government is considering framing a new safety policy for paying guest accommodation. It is too little and too late, and even so, persistent corruption would cast a shadow on its effective implementation. Lastly, the elephant in the room no one dares to address is the severe and woeful shortage of government hostels, which forces over 90 per cent of its outstation students to seek expensive and unsafe private PG accommodation. As Delhi University began to attract more outstation students, it should have, like the much-reviled JNU, built adequate hostel infrastructure to meet the growing demand.