MHA sets up committee to inquire into Delhi coaching centre incident

On Monday evening, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said it has constituted a committee to inquire into the incident at a coaching centre in the national capital’s Old Rajinder Nagar locality. It said the committee will submit its report within 30 days.

The committee will inquire into the reasons, fix responsibility, suggest measures and recommend policy changes, it said. The committee will comprise the Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the Principal Secretary (Home) of the Delhi Government, Delhi Police’s Special Commissioner of Police, a fire advisor, and the MHA joint secretary, who will be its convenor.

Delhi's Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena announced Rs 10 lakh compensation for the kin of the three IAS aspirants who died in the coaching centre flooding incident. He also announced action against officials of Delhi Fire Services (DFS), police, and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) within 24 hours if found guilty of dereliction of duty, the LG's office said.

A Joint Task Force of MCD and DFS, constituted under the order of the Delhi High Court in the fire incident at a coaching centre at Mukherjee Nagar earlier this year, will also undertake a survey of all buildings in the Rajinder Nagar area, it said. It will seal off all basements and other illegal structures that are in violation of building bylaws, Master Plan Delhi 2021, and fire safety norms, the statement said.

The Delhi incident in which three civil services aspirants died resonated in Parliament, with Rajya Sabha chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar dubbing the culture of coaching centres as a "gas chamber" and Union minister Manohar Lal Khattar blaming the AAP government's "carelessness" for the tragedy.

Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said responsibility must be fixed so that such incidents do not recur and there should be no politics over it.