Shreya Yadav, Tanya Soni and Nevin Dalvin were bright students who aspired to join India’s superior civil services of the country (“Three UPSC aspirants drown in flooded basement of Delhi coaching centre.”) But their dreams have been snuffed out by the unfortunate and avoidable incident in the basement of a prominent coaching institute for the Indian Administrative Service in New Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar. As they were working in the library in the basement of the institute, incessant rains caused it to flood, drowning them.

As a faculty member who coaches students for the civil service examinations and as a former Union Public Services Commission aspirant myself, I wholeheartedly offer my condolences to the family and the loved ones of these young people. To ensure that such tragic events are not repeated, accountability should be fixed at all levels.

At the same time, without attempting to absolve the coaching institute of its liability in the matter and without diluting the demand for better safety measures by institutes, it needs to be emphasised that trying to put all of the blame on the coaching institutions is akin to missing the trees for the woods.

When generalisations are made without an empirical basis, they tend to be mere opinions – not reality based on facts. It is true that there may be coaching institutions working merely to maximise their profits without caring for students’ safety, interests and their careers. But at the same time, is it right to paint all coaching institutions with the same brush?

Of course, coaching is a business concern and, like all enterprises, they also have some objectives and goals. There has also been loss of lives and serious destruction of livelihood and property due to actions of other industrial and business organisations and also by governments.

Consider this:

● On May 2024, an explosion in a chemical unit in Thane, Maharashtra, killed 11 people.

● On March 2024, a boiler blast in a spare parts manufacturing in Rewari, Haryana resulted into the death of 10 people.

● On May 2024, a fire broke out In the Baby Care New Born Hospital in Vivek Vihar, New Delhi, resulting in the tragic death of eight newborn babies.

There are far too many such examples of precious lives lost due to safety protocols being neglected or regulations deliberately being ignored in the interests of profit. In how many of these tragic incidents was a general condemnation made of the specific industry with the owners and management being held to be the villains?

Have we heard of any judicial comments calling the hospitals of New Delhi death chambers? Or have we seen debates in the media critiquing the “ blood-sucking profit motive” of these industries/ hospitals/ companies?

Although there may be some stray remarks or articles, the kind of attacks the coaching institutions face from all fronts are hardly, if not never, directed towards other sectors of the economy and society.

But should all chemical factories or, for that matter, all baby care hospitals be categorised as illegal, unsafe and be castigated as being driven by money alone? They should not be because the law, operates on an individual case-to-case basis. There are good apples and bad apples in all realms. The bad apples must be dealt with appropriately instead of treating all the fruit alike. Such measures not only demotivate the good Samaritans but also precludes the students from availing of qualitative, teaching.

I am not discounting the action of the institute in question for illegally running a library in the basement nor am I downplaying the genuine concerns of the aspirants. I am also conscious of the need to scale up safety and security protocols and better address the needs of students. But at the same time, the tendency to demonise the coaching institutions without calling out the abject failure if not the complicity of the Central and the Delhi governments, the local authorities, including the police and the “slumlords” and brokers in the area would not be in the interests of justice and accountability.

If it continues, the students themselves will be the ultimate losers. — Reghu Ram