Delhi's tragedies : Negligence continues to cost lives

PALAM, Vivek Vihar, Saket, Malviya Nagar and now Satya Niketan — the list of Delhi's tragedies is becoming painfully long this year. What links them is the loss of innocent lives and a recurring pattern of unsafe buildings, unauthorised alterations, commercial misuse of residential properties and, most disturbingly, regulatory failure. The Satya Niketan building collapse is the latest reminder of how disasters become inevitable when warnings are ignored. The building, reportedly sanctioned only as a ground-plus-one structure, had been expanded into a much taller structure without an approved building plan. Renovation work was also reportedly underway when the decades-old structure collapsed. A magisterial inquiry and an FIR are obvious steps, but accountability must go beyond the arrest of the building's owner(s) and the suspension of a few officers. The probe into the Saket incident, in which a multi-storeyed commercial building crumbled, also pointed to unauthorised construction and plans to add further floors for financial gain. In Malviya Nagar, 23 people died after a blaze engulfed an establishment that was allegedly permitted to have only six bed-and-breakfast rooms but was being operated as a 26-room facility. The fire incidents in Palam and Vivek Vihar exposed glaring violations as well. The national capital does not suffer from a shortage of laws or building codes. What it lacks is consistent enforcement. The roadmap for a safer Delhi must include a ward-wise audit of old and structurally altered buildings, immediate action against dangerous properties, transparent records of building approvals and strict penalties for officials and owners who ignore violations. Delhi, with its triple-engine sarkar, cannot afford to let such tragedies become routine. A prevention approach, not a reactive one, should be the way forward.