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By:

Sagari Gupta

24 March 2026 at 7:46:04 pm

A Notice Is Not a Wall

India has no shortage of building rules. The problem is making sure they produce safer buildings. The recent collapse of a building in Delhi’s Satya Niketan area, which killed six people and trapped dozens more beneath the rubble, brings into sharp relief the precariousness of the city’s built environment. The five-storey structure, housing a boys’ paying-guest accommodation near Delhi University’s South Campus, gave way while repair work was still under way. While the precise cause of the...

A Notice Is Not a Wall

India has no shortage of building rules. The problem is making sure they produce safer buildings. The recent collapse of a building in Delhi’s Satya Niketan area, which killed six people and trapped dozens more beneath the rubble, brings into sharp relief the precariousness of the city’s built environment. The five-storey structure, housing a boys’ paying-guest accommodation near Delhi University’s South Campus, gave way while repair work was still under way. While the precise cause of the collapse remains unconfirmed, what is already clear is the lethal cost of allowing buildings to be altered, crowded and repaired without adequate regard for structural safety. Building-collapse investigations generally look at structural weakness, unapproved floor additions, removed load-bearing walls and overloading. Those are engineering questions. The policy question that sits above them is the gap between output and outcome. Delhi’s municipal system, like most regulatory systems in India, has been built to measure and reward the first. It has almost no mechanism for verifying the second. The person who decides to add a floor or convert a house into a PG is rarely the person inside it when the structure fails. That mismatch between who takes the risk and who bears its consequence is a textbook negative externality, and it is why market incentives alone will not fix unsafe construction. Land is expensive, formal housing is out of reach for most young workers and students, and demand for cheap paying-guest accommodation near college campuses stays high year-round. A house becomes a PG. A floor built for one household starts carrying three. The extra income is immediate. The structural cost, if it arrives, arrives later and lands on someone else, split between tenant, neighbour and municipality. Death Traps Structural collapses killed 8,756 people across India between 2018 and 2022, close to five deaths a day, a figure that surfaced in Rajya Sabha proceedings drawing on National Crime Records Bureau data. That is not a data gap. India has building bye-laws, approval procedures and municipal enforcement powers already on the books. What it lacks is an implementation architecture that closes the loop between identifying risk and removing it. Put simply, a notice proves the state has produced an output. It does not prove a structural assessment was completed, that residents were evacuated, that repairs happened, or that a certified engineer signed off. It proves paperwork exists, nothing more. Closing that gap is a design problem, not a resourcing one. Every high-risk building should carry a case number and a named officer accountable for it, with fixed deadlines at each stage: inspection within a set number of days, a structural assessment where required, a decision on repair, evacuation, sealing or demolition, and verification of compliance before closure. The named officer should change with the stage, so responsibility cannot sit with nobody in particular. An overdue inspection should automatically flag the officer holding it. An order left unimplemented past deadline should escalate on its own, with the reason for delay logged, whether that is litigation, an uncooperative owner, a capacity shortfall or an evacuation still pending. This turns an enforcement record into an audit trail. That record should sit in public view, within legitimate privacy limits. A ward-level dashboard showing how many high-risk properties are under inspection, how many have completed structural assessments and how many remain unresolved gives a councillor, a tenant or a journalist a way to verify whether a case is moving, rather than take an official’s word for it. At present, issuing a notice ends an official’s obligation. Under an outcome-based system, an unresolved case stays attached to the administration until the risk is addressed, realigning the incentive from documentation to resolution. The same logic applies to unauthorised construction. A booking is not enforcement. A demolition order is not a demolition. A sealing order is not closure if the property reopens later. The administrative chain should end only once the physical condition of the property has been independently verified, not when a file is marked complete. There is also a straightforward fiscal argument. The Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund pays a standard ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh for every death in a building collapse - a rate applied most recently after the Thane collapse this July. Apply that rate to the death toll in the Satya Niketan case and the ex-gratia payout alone crosses Rs. 12 lakh, before emergency response, hospital treatment, policing, lost working days and litigation are counted. Prevention requires spending before anything visible has gone wrong, which makes it a harder budget line to defend than a rescue operation. That asymmetry, not a lack of resources, is why prevention keeps losing inside the state. The Satya Niketan building had an owner. It had tenants, students renting rooms inside it. Someone should have flagged it for scrutiny before repair work began on a Sunday afternoon. A notice is evidence that the state has seen a risk. It is not evidence the risk has been removed. Only a verified outcome closes that gap, and until the system is built to track outcomes rather than paperwork, the next notice will tell us as little as this one did. (The writer is an independent public policy researcher. Views personal.)

India at 80: Proud, Unfinished

There is something wonderfully Indian about reaching 80 and still arguing about whether we are celebrating 79 years or the 80th Independence Day. The answer is simple: India became independent on 15 August 1947, making this year’s celebration the 80th Independence Day, while 79 years have been completed.


Numbers apart, 80 is a magnificent milestone. I have therefore tried a slightly unusual birthday exercise. Let us count 80 things India can proudly celebrate and 80 things it must still accomplish. This is not a political scorecard. It is a citizen’s balance sheet, with pride on one side and unfinished work on the other.


Glorious Achievements

1-10: Democracy and universal adult franchise; the Constitution; national integration; peaceful transfer of power; an independent judiciary; federal institutions; expansion of education; longer life expectancy; decline in extreme poverty; improved food security.


11-20: The Green Revolution; agricultural self-sufficiency; the White Revolution; a vast dairy network; growth of fisheries; improved irrigation; rural electrification; expansion of roads; railways reaching deeper India; food-grain production on a vastly larger scale.


21-30: IITs and IIMs; AIIMS and medical institutions; scientific research; atomic energy; nuclear capability; the Indian space programme; Aryabhata; Chandrayaan; Mangalyaan; Chandrayaan-3’s historic lunar landing.


31-40: A globally respected IT industry; software exports; a formidable pharmaceutical sector; indigenous vaccines; biotechnology; a flourishing start-up ecosystem; digital public infrastructure; Aadhaar; UPI; near-universal access to banking.


41-50: Mobile connectivity; affordable data; Digital India; FASTag; direct benefit transfers; financial inclusion; rapid expansion of highways; metro rail systems; modern airports; growing renewable-energy capacity.


51-60: A strong armed forces; nuclear deterrence; peacekeeping contributions; disaster-response capability; a vibrant space sector; global diplomatic presence; international sporting achievements; the cricketing triumphs that occasionally make neighbours forget their disagreements; Olympic and Paralympic successes; a growing sporting culture.


61-70: Women’s increasing educational participation; women scientists and entrepreneurs; expansion of self-help groups; legal rights for women; social welfare programmes; reservation-driven inclusion; greater awareness of disability rights; expanding access to sanitation; improved drinking-water access; better housing.


71-80: A thriving film industry; literature in dozens of languages; Indian cuisine conquering global tables; yoga's worldwide reach; preservation of cultural diversity; a huge democratic conversation; entrepreneurial Indians across the world; a youthful population; resilience through wars, disasters and pandemics; and, above all, the remarkable ability of 1.4 billion people to remain recognisably one India.


The progress is real. Yet, as every good banker knows, a balance sheet has liabilities too.


Unfinished Chapters

1-10: Quality education for every child; foundational literacy; better government schools; teacher training; affordable higher education; employable graduates; vocational skills; research excellence; reduced examination anxiety; equal educational opportunity.


11-20: Malnutrition; maternal health; affordable healthcare; stronger public hospitals; preventive healthcare; mental-health support; geriatric care; healthcare in remote areas; medicine affordability; universal health security.


21-30: Youth unemployment; underemployment; quality jobs; apprenticeships; better labour productivity; stronger manufacturing; support for small businesses; agricultural incomes; farm diversification; rural prosperity.


31-40: Women’s safety; equal pay; greater workforce participation; political representation; freedom from discrimination; childcare support; prevention of child marriage; elimination of manual scavenging; protection of vulnerable communities; genuine social mobility.


41-50: Cleaner air; cleaner rivers; groundwater conservation; waste management; plastic pollution; forest protection; biodiversity; climate resilience; sustainable cities; responsible consumption.


51-60: Safer roads; better public transport; affordable urban housing; planned cities; drainage; pedestrian infrastructure; universal accessibility; dependable power; clean cooking energy; reliable internet everywhere.


61-70: Judicial delays; prison reform; police modernisation; faster dispute resolution; stronger local governments; greater civic participation; transparent public services; reduction of corruption; responsible use of technology; protection of privacy.


71-80: Scientific temper; critical thinking; social harmony; communal amity; dignity of labour; respect for public spaces; civic discipline; responsible digital behaviour; preservation of constitutional values; and, finally, ensuring that prosperity reaches the last person standing at the end of the queue.


None of this diminishes our achievement but defines our responsibility. Perhaps that is the beauty of independence. It gave us not a finished house but the keys, the blueprint and the freedom to build. Patriotism is not merely applause for what has been achieved. It is also the courage to admit what remains undone.


As I look at the tricolour this Independence Day, I see neither a perfect nation nor a failed one. I see a magnificent work in progress.


And perhaps that is the most patriotic description of India at 80: proud of the distance travelled, impatient about the distance remaining, and determined to keep walking.


(The writer is a retired banker and author. He can be reached at krs1957@hotmail.com. Views personal.)

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