Fire safety at capital’s coaching hubs leaves much to be desired

The Indian Express visits a few centres in Kalu Sarai and Mukherjee Nagar, two major coaching hubs situated 25 km apart, and finds out how the safety arrangement for students leave much to be desired.

Kalu Sarai

A grey cemented four-storey structure with a prominent glass façade, the building housing Physics Walla Vidyapeeth, an online coaching platform for IIT-JEE and NEET preparation, which went offline only last year, stands tall amid several old shops, eateries, chemists and hostels in the narrow streets of Kalu Sarai.

At the entrance of the building are four red fire buckets, a hose reel and an empty space under which the authorities claim to have a water tank with a capacity of about 30,000 litres.

The building houses two classes per floor with a capacity of about 70 students in each. It has a single entry and exit point, lacking multiple emergency exits in case of fire.

“In August last year, the building had an incident where the wires of the electrical meter at the entrance had caught fire due to overload of electricity. Following this, we changed the wiring of the entire building,” says an official on the condition of anonymity.

Sanjai Srivastav, who is responsible for Operations and Business, says the centre adheres to all measures to ensure safety of its students. “We have fire sprinklers, an alarm system, and a fire expert present on the premises full-time. We don’t end all the classes together; keeping safety in mind, each floor has different timing. For instance, the classes on the first floor will be released around 1.30 PM and the classes on the second floor after a gap of 15 minutes,” he adds.

Srivastav says the centre is in talks with owners of the building to install sliders on the front side connecting with classrooms on each floor to ensure multiple exits in case of fire. “The building is covered on all three sides with other properties and there is no space to fit in fire exits there,” he explains.

The premises has eight ABC cylinders, one Carbon Dioxide cylinder, a fire blanket, nine smoke detectors, 31 fire sprinklers per floor and a Fire and Public Address system to detect and notify residents.

There are three water tanks on the terrace of the building. “At the end of each day, we check the functioning of all the equipment and systems,” says Sumant Kumar, 33, who is responsible for the maintenance of the fire-fighting system at the coaching centre.
Even as the authorities seem convinced about their safety arrangements, a chat with students reveals the anxiety that comes with studying in congested spaces with no practice of evacuation in case of emergency.

“There are around 70-80 students in my classroom… four students have to adjust and sit on the same bench which is very congested and uncomfortable,” says Preeti Kumari, 15, a NEET-aspirant from Bihar’s Gaya. Another student, who joined the institute in April and did not wish to be named, says no emergency fire drill has been conducted for the students so far.

Among the oldest inhabitants of the lanes of Kalu Sarai, FIITJEE is spread across 6-7 buildings with each having a minimum of four storeys.

The Indian Express visited a five-storey FIITJEE building — named Shiksha Bhavan-2 — and found a single narrow staircase with a steep flight of stairs at the entrance of the building.

The first three floors of the building house two classrooms catering to 40-50 students. A few of these classrooms have no windows.

The building has a single entry and exit point, a small fire extinguisher in each classroom and a large one on each floor, and a smoke detector in each classroom. However, there is no sprinkler system and ventilation in the classrooms and zero fire exits.

The windows in several classrooms were fixed by grilles, posing a fire hazard.

“The air-conditioner is perpetually under repair, and the infrastructure is bad. The other buildings have better classrooms but the classrooms in this building are very congested,” says Pratyush Jha, 16, who hails from Bihar’s Darbhanga.

“There is a single staircase and the steps are too steep…in case of a fire, it is hard for all the students to evacuate at the same time. There is also the danger of tripping and falling,” he adds.
The Indian Express reached out to authorities at FIITJEE’s Kalu Sarai centre but did not receive a response.

Narrating the history of the locality as a coaching centre hub, Prakash Chand, who has been running his tailoring business here since 1975, says, “The first coaching centre to begin operations here was Pie Coaching Centre. This shut down later. Following this, FIITJEE started functioning in this area in the early 90s…the opening of these coaching centres brought in a lot of students as a result of which paying guests (PG) and hostels started coming up.”

Chand says he has seen a steady inflow of students over the years. “From morning to evening, I see tens of thousands of students going to different coaching centres here every day,” Chand adds.

Several coaching centres in the area operate out of basements with no ventilation systems, smoke alarms or water sprinklers. One such centre is the Student Helper coaching centre.

A small-scale two-classroom structure with one classroom on the ground floor and the other in the basement in an old multi-storeyed building, this coaching centre finds itself violating several fire safety norms.
There are no smoke detectors, fire hose, sprinkler or alarm system on the premises which has a single entry and exit point.

“This coaching centre opened in January this year…this is currently a small start-up. We just passed out of college and decided to open this coaching centre. We are not a big brand,” says Amit Kumar, 25, who teaches Maths at the centre and is also responsible for admission inquiry.

The institute caters to only 15 students preparing for IIT-JEE and NEET.

“As of now, we have two big fire extinguishers as we do not have a huge strength of students. We will increase the number of equipment and incorporate more measures with an increase in the number of students,” says Prakash Pradhan, marketing manager of the coaching centre.

Mohanlal, 55, who has been running a mess for students in Kalu Sarai since 2010 says that with the number of students increasing in the area, the streets are crowded most of the time. “The streets are so crowded that there is no space for a two-wheeler to pass. In such cases, how can one imagine a fire engine going inside these narrow lanes in case of a fire hazard?”

The Delhi government did not respond to calls and messages seeking details of new regulations implemented and inspections undertaken at coaching centre hubs after fire at one such centre in Surat took 22 lives in 2019.

Mukherjee Nagar

In Mukherjee Nagar, a hub of UPSC coaching centres, as students make their way to their classes, a discussion about the recent fire accident in the area is inevitable. “I think the kids just panicked a lot. They saw the smoke, panicked and jumped out the windows,” says a student nonchalantly. However, these students, too, study in classrooms and buildings similar to the one that caught fire.

dA dingy staircase, barely wide enough for one, leads one to a lecture hall at S D Educom coaching centre. Most classrooms have no windows. In others, the windows are shuttered to keep the harsh summer heat at bay. Air conditioners crank out cool air as they drip water down the wall. Arms touch and elbows knock as students attempt to balance clipboards on their laps to write notes. A lone fire extinguisher sits in the corner of the room, collecting dust. The label reads “Use by 20.4.2023”.

Neeraj Songara (27), an aspirant from Bhopal, says, “The last time I ever saw a fire drill take place was years ago, after a fire broke out in a coaching centre in Surat.”

According to Saurabh Kumar (22), “The conditions are very bad in the classrooms.” Pointing at the building entrance, he said, “See that? They all have meters on the ground floor. Didn’t the building that caught fire yesterday also have that?”

Kumar’s friend Santosh (also 22) agrees with him. “The buildings are so old here — all from the 80s and 90s. Their wiring is also 30 to 40 years old. God only knows how they manage to support multiple ACs.” Kumar says he feels suffocated in the classrooms. “They put 500 children in one place and switch the ACs on. Most of the ceilings are sunken and the only thing they do is put false ceilings made from plywood underneath it. These coaching centres take so much money from us but have no regard for our safety and security,” he says.

The condition of the PGs in the area is no better than the classrooms, said Akshay (25), a student from Drishti IAS. “The PGs are just as bad as the classrooms. You share rooms with three other people, with no space to move around and they charge you 7,500 to 8,000 rupees for it,” he says.
Akshay says he had tried to raise the issue earlier but found no support in his batchmates. “Most of them are either too enamoured by the institutions or too scared to oppose them. After all, a lot of IAS and IFS officers have prepared from here.”