No one really runs Delhi

A freak set of events may have led to the tragic drowning of three civil services aspirants in the national Capital’s Old Rajendra Nagar area on Saturday evening, but it was also a tragedy that was waiting to happen. Several lapses have surfaced in the matter. The basement, in which the three were trapped when surface drainage gushed in after a heavy localised downpour, had approval for use only as a parking or storage area. It shouldn’t have been functioning as a library where a large number of people could regularly gather. The centre was run by Rau’s IAS Study Circle, a fairly well-known coaching company of some vintage, but the basement didn’t have the necessary permits and clearances to function as a commercial establishment. It isn’t clear whether it was an error of omission or commission that made the local corporation turn a blind eye to the violation.

But the tragedy doesn’t end there. It turns out that flooding and waterlogging is a recurrent problem in the area, suggesting inadequate drainage infrastructure or poor upkeep, or, as is very likely the case, both. Yet, none of the authorities responsible for this — typical of Delhi’s complex governance machinery, there are several — did anything about it.

And even official apathy isn’t fresh news: After last year’s fire at a coaching centre in Mukherjee Nagar in the city, the Delhi Police informed the Delhi high court that just 67 of close to 600 coaching institutes in the city had relevant no-objection certificates from the authorities. A year on, the needle seems to have moved little in terms of ensuring safety at such establishments.

Not just the building housing the basement, but many such in the area and other pockets in Delhi have been functioning as coaching centres and other commercial establishments, with a heavy footfall, for decades now — many of them illegally, violating several building bylaws and without adequate safety and evacuation planning.

Saturday’s tragedy has resulted in the obvious blame game, with the Lieutenant Governor and the Aam Aadmi Party pulling out a routine that reads like the storyboard of a very funny Spy vs Spy strip by Antonio Prohias. Only, in this case, the joke is on all of Delhi’s residents. The punch line is that, in a Union territory with multiple governments, no one is really in charge. The Capital desperately needs a clean-up — one that can upgrade its crumbling infrastructure, and crack down on ineffective and inefficient bodies.

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