Month before Delhi coaching centre tragedy, MP civil services aspirant had written to MCD for action

Gwalior, July 29

A civil services aspirant from Gwalior on Monday claimed he had lodged a complaint about the alleged illegal use of New Delhi-based Rau’s IAS Study Circle’s basement, where three students drowned over the weekend, on a central government portal a month before the tragedy.

Kishore Singh Kushwaha maintained that had the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which has jurisdiction over the area where the well-known coaching centre for civil services examinations is located, acted promptly on his complaint, their lives could have been saved.

Talking to reporters, Kushwaha, who is taking coaching for the civil services examinations in Gwalior, said he had uploaded his complaint on the central government’s Public Grievances (PG) portal on June 26 about classes and libraries being operated from the basements of Rao’s IAS Study Circle and other institutes in the national capital.

He claimed that he had also sent two reminders — on July 15 and 22 — but no action was taken by officials concerned at the MCD, where the complaint was forwarded.

Three civil services aspirants, including two women, drowned on Saturday night in the basement of Rau’s IAS Study Circle in the Old Rajinder Nagar area when it got flooded due to heavy rain.

“I had sent a complaint against the illegal use of the basement at the IAS coaching centre on the central government’s PG portal nearly a month before the tragic incident, but the MCD did not pay heed to it. I sent reminders on July 15 as well as on July 22, but no action was taken,” Kushwaha said.

Basements are only for storage purposes, but classes are held there and they are also used as libraries without permission from authorities, he said.

“Not just in Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar area, but the situation is same in the national capital’s Mukherjee Nagar as well as in other cities like Gwalior, Kota, Patna, Indore and Jaipur, which are education hubs. Coaching centres run libraries in their basements putting at risk life of students,” Kushwaha maintained.

These buildings are in a dilapidated state and they have permission to use their basements only for storage. But to save money and by bribing local civic body officials, their owners obtain permissions to run classes there, he alleged.

“I urge the central government and the local administration to take cognizance of even the smallest of complaints and act on them,” Kushwaha stated.