Paper Towers

The collapse of the Delhi hostel which has left six people dead and several more injured brings into sharp relief the dangerous disconnect between what is sanctioned and what is actually built in Indian cities.

The structure was reportedly sanctioned only up to ground-plus-one, yet had grown to five storeys and was being used as a densely occupied student hostel.

While the investigation will establish whether the basement alterations, weakened pillars, waterlogging or some other structural failure caused the building to give way, the circumstances already raise a more uncomfortable question: how does a building apparently approved for two floors become a five-storey hostel without the system noticing?

Delhi’s student neighbourhoods have developed a voracious market for cheap accommodation, and where demand rises faster than regulated housing, buildings acquire floors, rooms and tenants with remarkable speed. A residential property becomes a paying guest facility; a basement becomes usable space; another floor appears; more beds are squeezed in. The paperwork, if it exists at all, struggles to keep pace with the construction.

There is no reason to assume that this is uniquely Delhi’s problem. Pune’s student districts, Bengaluru’s rental corridors, Mumbai’s crowded suburbs and other education and employment hubs face the same pressures. Wherever land is scarce, rents are high and demand for accommodation is relentless, the temptation to build beyond what was sanctioned is immense.

The danger is obvious. A building designed for one purpose and a particular structural load cannot indefinitely be treated as a piece of elastic real estate. Adding floors, altering columns, excavating beneath an existing structure or cramming dozens of occupants into a building designed for far fewer people is not renovation. It is gambling with lives.

Yet India’s municipal systems too often seem to discover illegal construction only after something has collapsed. The response is then predictable: an FIR, inspections, sealing drives and promises that officials found negligent will be punished. Delhi has already ordered inspections of nearby paying guest accommodations and buildings with fifth floors. Such action is welcome. It is also painfully late.

The real test is not how efficiently the authorities clear the rubble. It is whether they can prevent the next building from becoming rubble.

The country needs more than inspection drives. It needs municipal bodies capable of knowing what is being built in their jurisdictions, enforcing sanctioned plans before violations become permanent and making officials answerable when obvious breaches are ignored.

A city’s housing shortage cannot be solved by allowing unsafe buildings to multiply. Nor can affordable accommodation be secured by making students the unwitting occupants of structural experiments.

Satya Niketan has exposed a dangerous gap between the buildings cities need and the buildings their regulations can safely accommodate. If that gap is not closed, the next collapse may simply have a different pin code.