This cannot be allowed to pass under any circumstances. The death of three UPSC aspirants in the basement of a Civil Services coaching Centre in Rajinder Nagar in Delhi is something which should never have happened. All it took was 30 minutes of heavy rain and following which water gushed down to the area taking the students by surprise and leading to their horrific death. As expected, the blame game has commenced with political players blaming each other for this tragedy and attempting to score brownie points. Two persons including the owner have been detained but is this sufficient? Many questions get raised and there have to be proper answers. The Delhi Lti.Governor should immediately step in and take stock of the situation, and to begin with, take action against whoever is held responsible in the preliminary inquiry. The action should be against senior officials and not small-time functionaries, who can be easily implicated, though they may have contributed to the incident by their gross negligence.
Those who are supposed to monitor are the ones who should be taken to task. This action should be directed against zonal officials of the Municipal Corporation as well as senior members of the Delhi government. How did this happen? When the completion certificate was given to the building way back in 2021, it was stipulated that the basement should be used only for storage purposes. Obviously, it was being used for other things as well and the reason why these aspirants died was because they were at a place where they were not supposed to be there. Nothing can bring them back but there have to be lessons that need to be learnt. Unfortunately, these are never learnt and such tragedies repeatedly keep on happening.
A few days earlier, another aspirant was electrocuted in the national capital, which is indeed a matter of shame. The Central government must also step in and ensure that things are streamlined. The reason why Delhi has multiplicity of authority is because it has been deliberately done. This provides a getaway to inefficient bureaucrats who keep on shifting blame. In the end, an inquiry is conducted, and its findings are subsequently consigned to the files except where the bureaucracy needs to take certain measures on the paper, to absolve itself of blame in any such future incidents. The only time in Delhi a proper action was taken was way back in 1988, when there was an outbreak of cholera and gastro enteritis in the city, the Eastern part being most affected. The then Health Secretary tried to confine the argument in attempting to distinguish between cholera and gastro enteritis, leading to no respite. Politics took over and HKL Bhagat, a Union Minister and the MP from East Delhi, found it as an opportune time to settle scores with the then Lt.Governor HKL Kapoor, who was declining to listen to him.
Bhagat raised the matter with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who had just returned from an overseas visit along with his wife, Sonia and persuaded him to visit the area to see things for himself. Rajiv visited Gokulpuri, Nand Nagri and Sunder Nagri to witness the breakdown of sanitation conditions following the rains. The appalling conditions were there to see and the officials who were all there were summoned to a high-level meeting immediately following the visit. The Lt.Governor, the Chief secretary, the DDA vice Chairperson and the Municipal Commissioner were all removed by the night and three senior engineers placed under suspension. The impact was felt and till this day, the bureaucracy before the monsoons hold meetings to take stock of the epidemic conditions and issue guidelines which help to absolve them of any responsibility if there is an outbreak. In the latest instance, it has repeatedly been seen that every time there are monsoons, the city authorities are found to be wanting. Even in the pre-monsoon period after a spell of rain, there was flooding in the VVIP areas leading to a lot of damage and destruction. It is evident that there is no coordinated effort between various agencies.
If some construction takes place, it requires the upgradation of infra-structure as well. However, this is not done on time and leads to water logging and other problems that go with it. What is the need of the hour is that there has to be a single authority, which oversees all such issues. Unfortunately, the Chief Minister who is answerable to the people has limited powers, thanks to the provision in the Constitution, which are there because of the recommendations the Balakrishnan report. Balakrishnan was a bureaucrat also and instead of ending multiplicity of authority in the city ended up giving more powers to civil servants and making elected representatives weaker in the positions they were holding.
There has been in the past a demand for granting full statehood to Delhi, which has been raised by virtually every political party at some stage or the other. Statehood may not be the answer to many problems but at least it shall make the CM accountable. In the present scenario, an inquiry should be conducted and the heads of organisations responsible for the deaths should be made to answer for what has happened.
