This country keeps failing its students, whether they are in government schools far from the city or in expensive PGs in the capital.

Seven people have died, out of the 12 rescued so far, after a five-storey building collapsed in Delhi's Satya Niketan on Sunday. Among the dead are Arpit, a second-year B.Com student at Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma (ARSD) College; Abhishek Kumar, a student of Motilal Nehru College; and 18-year-old Akshat from Madhya Pradesh’s Katni.

Akshat’s friend said he had returned to Delhi only two days ago, after Raksha Bandhan, and that he wanted to become an IAS officer. Others are still to be identified and rescued. Local students said that since it was a Sunday, they expected anywhere between 25 and 40 students to still be trapped.

The building was built in the late 1990s on a 55-square-yard plot and was gradually converted into a paying guest (PG) accommodation. Locals said construction work on old shops on the ground floor was underway before the collapse.

So far, the Delhi Police has arrested the owner of the PG, and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has suspended five South Zone officials, including the Deputy Commissioner, Executive Engineer, Superintending Engineer, Assistant Engineer and Junior Engineer.

But this PG is only the tip of the iceberg.

Priced out, pushed in

For Delhi University’s 91 colleges, with over 1,14,494 undergraduate students, the central university offers only 4,577 hostel beds: 3,145 for women and 1,432 for men. If we consider that half the students at the varsity are from the city, the ratio of hostel beds for the other half is still one bed for every 12 students. For students who can’t secure a hostel room, the only options are expensive rented accommodation or the hundreds of PGs spread across the city.

Rising rents have made the situation even harder. In 2024, a Newslaundry report found that monthly rent for a single room in Kamala Nagar, a popular locality for students in North Campus, rose to Rs 18,000 from around Rs 12,000 just two years earlier. The situation isn't any better in South Campus and it is this pressure to pay higher monthly rent that pushes students into hastily converted and poorly scrutinised PGs like the one in Satya Niketan that collapsed.

See, there is a significant difference between a hostel and a PG. Hostels are generally operated by a university or by a well-established company and are intended to accommodate a large number of students. A PG, however, is essentially a private residential property where the owner allows people to stay in exchange for a fee with services that sometimes include food, housekeeping, etc.

That’s where the situation gets complicated; India has no single law that applies to PGs. Rather, they are regulated by a combination of municipal rules, land-use regulations, building bye-laws, fire-safety requirements and local licensing rules, and these differ from city to city.

Then consider this situation: a residential building, originally designed and approved to house a specific number of families, is turned into a PG to increase rental income. The building’s rooms are subdivided, and additional beds are installed, so eventually dozens of students end up living in a building that was never designed for, or approved to have, that many students.

No one is watching

It is at that point that a PG can turn into a nightmare; not because the room is small, the rent is high, or the food is bad, but because the building might not be safe enough for its occupants.

Ideally, that is when the MCD should get involved. Its building department is responsible for handling unauthorised construction, which may involve booking a property, ordering work to halt, or sealing and demolishing illegal structures. However, if an illegal building can be turned into a PG, filled with students, and continue operating, then the issue becomes one of enforcement.

Speaking to the Hindustan Times in the aftermath of the tragedy, an MCD official said basement alterations to a standing structure like the one that collapsed cannot legally be permitted and are hazardous. The MCD official blamed the field staff for failing to detect the changes, and noted that the building’s fifth floor also violated the city’s Floor Area Ratio (FAR) norms. The civic body’s own report on the collapsed property showed no record of any booking, sealing, or complaints against it, according to the publication.

So, how many of these PGs are operating across Delhi without the required approvals, and how many are known to the authorities? Your guess is probably as good as mine. If illegal construction is widespread and authorities only take action after a building has collapsed and people have died, it is reasonable to conclude that this is either a serious failure in enforcement or something much more concerning.

Money that never arrived

Another issue is that many students have no idea what they are agreeing to when they decide to reside in a PG. Since most PG residents are legally classified as licensees, and not tenants, their rights largely depend on the contract they sign with the owner. Hence, if the authorities suddenly seal an unauthorised PG, the owner will face monetary consequences, while students will have to look for alternative accommodation.

This isn’t anything new since there has always been a high demand for more hostels at DU. If you look at candidates contesting Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections in the past, you will see them make the same kind of promises repeatedly, namely more hostels. Moreover, various new projects have also been announced and approved over the years, but the reality on the ground tells a whole different story. 

In 2024, the Centre approved Rs 272 crore from its ‘Nirbhaya Fund’ for two hostels with 500 beds each, dedicated to women students and women employed at the university. Two years later, the funds for this hostel project had still not been released, an RTI recently found.

The university has also obtained major infrastructure approvals through the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA), covering funds for student accommodation, with new hostel projects and expansions apparently still planned. However, announcing a hostel does not mean a hostel is being built, and building a hostel does not mean that a student will end up with a bed.

For many years, students have been told more hostels are coming. However, that promise remains unfulfilled, and for the time being, that gap is filled by unsafe PGs. 

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