This country keeps failing its students, whether they are in government schools far from the city or in expensive PGs in the capital.

Seven people have died, out of the 12 rescued so far, after a five-storey building collapsed in Delhi's Satya Niketan on Sunday. Among the dead are Arpit, a second-year B.Com student at Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma (ARSD) College; Abhishek Kumar, a student of Motilal Nehru College; and 18-year-old Akshat from Madhya Pradesh’s Katni.

Akshat’s friend said he had returned to Delhi only two days ago, after Raksha Bandhan, and that he wanted to become an IAS officer. Others are still to be identified and rescued. Local students said that since it was a Sunday, they expected anywhere between 25 and 40 students to still be trapped.

The building was built in the late 1990s on a 55-square-yard plot and was gradually converted into a paying guest (PG) accommodation. Locals said construction work on old shops on the ground floor was underway before the collapse.

So far, the Delhi Police has arrested the owner of the PG, and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has suspended five South Zone officials, including the Deputy Commissioner, Executive Engineer, Superintending Engineer, Assistant Engineer and Junior Engineer.

But this PG is only the tip of the iceberg.

Priced out, pushed in

For Delhi University’s 91 colleges, with over 1,14,494 undergraduate students, the central university offers only 4,577 hostel beds: 3,145 for women and 1,432 for men. If we consider that half the students at the varsity are from the city, the ratio of hostel beds for the other half is still one bed for every 12........

© newslaundry