Amid widespread concern over the deaths of three civil services aspirants due to drowning inside a coaching centre in Delhi, Dr Vikas Divyakirti, founder and MD of Drishti IAS, has said that there is no single authority to regulate coaching centres and there is a deficiency in coordination among various agencies.

In an interview with ANI, Vikas Divyakirti said education is a concurrent subject and while the Education Ministry had issued model guidelines for regulation of coaching centres, states have not taken serious steps in this regard.
“There is no authority to regulate coaching centres. There is for schools, colleges and universities, but not for coaching institutes. The central government has proposed a policy on it. As education comes under concurrent list, the Centre pushes state governments to make laws on it, although, states haven’t taken a serious step in this regard, but Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan have taken some steps in this regard,” he said.
Referring to last year’s fire incident in the Mukherjee Nagar area in Delhi, Divyakirti said it was a serious issue, sealing of institutes started and a case was filed in the matter.
He said the court had taken a suo-motto cognizance of the issue due to which several positive steps were taken.
“The High Court’s involvement brought some clarity and urgency to the issue…the court questioned about provisions,” he said.
Divyakirti said the 2016 building bye-laws concerning Delhi were amended in 2020 and under the heading of educational building coaching institutes were added, which meant, the norms of educational building will apply to coaching institutes.
“The rules for educational buildings are strict and after these amended rules, the people who are running institutes on mixed lands, paid conversion fees, parking fees and these points were raised in High Court…there is a confusion on laws.”
Divyakirti spoke about the specifications for educational buildings under the National Building Code and said there was different specifications in unified building bye-laws 2020.
He said with the Fire Department indicating that NOC is not required for building at a certain height, coaching institutes started closing their second and third floors and started activities on the ground and first floor.
He said as per his knowledge, no coaching institute in Delhi has a fire NOC since 2019.
“When there was hearing in the High Court, there was a new stand, the criteria for considering an educational building was the educational activities and NOC for every floor was needed…”
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told Lok Sabha on Monday that the Centre issued guidelines on the regulation of coaching centres in January this year and that some states such as Rajasthan, Bihar and Goa have regulations.
He said that the government is committed to the socio-psychological and mental protection of students, whether they are studying in a coaching centre, school or higher education institute.
Three UPSC aspirants died due to drowning after the basement of their coaching centre was heavily flooded with rainwater on Saturday Centre following heavy rains. The incident occurred in Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar.
Delhi Police has made arrests in the case. MCD has also initiated disciplinary proceedings against officials and sealed basements of several coaching centres.-ANI