New Delhi, Sept. 7 -- The collapse of a paying guest accommodation in Delhi's Satya Niketan, which claimed seven lives, is a reminder that Indian cities often discover unsafe buildings only after lives are lost. The tragedy cannot be allowed to follow the familiar sequence of outrage, inspection, suspension and eventual forgetfulness. The Delhi government's proposal to require structural audits and safety certification for public-use buildings, including hostels and schools, is timely, but certification must become a preventive mechanism rather than another document buried in a municipal file. Across Indian cities, residential buildings have been converted into hostels, PG accommodations, coaching centres and commercial establishments, often with extra floors, partitions, water tanks and other loads added over time. A structure originally designed for one family may eventually accommodate dozens of people. Such changes alter its safety profile, yet scrutiny frequently remains inadequate until disaster exposes the consequences.
The larger failure is not simply the absence of regulation but the weakness of enforcement. Municipal bodies already possess powers to identify dangerous structures, inspect unauthorised construction and order remedial action. Yet the system remains overwhelmingly reactive. After a collapse, officials visit the site, notices are issued, buildings are sealed and inquiries are announced. These measures may establish responsibility, but do little to prevent the next disaster. India needs mandatory periodic structural audits for buildings with high public occupancy, with inspection frequency determined by age, condition, use and alterations. Any major modification should automatically require fresh certification. Audit reports should also be digitally recorded and linked to individual properties so that expired certificates and unresolved safety deficiencies can be flagged. Occupants should have access to this information. Students choosing a PG, parents selecting a hostel or families entering a hospital deserve to know whether the building has been independently certified as structurally safe.
Such a framework will fail, however, if accountability stops with property owners. When illegal alterations remain visible for years or unsafe buildings continue operating despite complaints, municipal oversight must also be questioned. Officials responsible for particular areas should be answerable for persistent regulatory failures, while independent verification should ensure that structural certificates are not reduced to paperwork purchased from compliant engineers. Technology can create inspection trails, record notices and make it harder for violations to disappear into bureaucratic files. Delhi's proposed policy should establish audit intervals, liability for certifying engineers and penalties for owners and officials who ignore identified risks. Other cities should follow. Rapid urbanisation has transformed neighbourhoods faster than municipal supervision has evolved, creating conditions in which neglected structures become disasters. Buildings rarely become dangerous overnight; risks accumulate through ageing, illegal alterations, excessive loads, poor maintenance and failed enforcement. The purpose of regulation is to detect those risks while there is still time to act. The seven deaths in Satya Niketan demand more than another inquiry. A city should never need rubble, funerals and grieving families to discover that a building was unsafe.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.