Karol Bagh a ticking time bomb as most buildings extended in violation of rules How the blaze cut short ‘lifetime tour’ of a family of 13
ACTION Minister tells fire services to inspect buildings with more than four floors and start sealing
NEWDELHI: It took urban development minister Satyendar Jain just a 10-minute walk around central Delhi’s Karol Bagh on Tuesday to gauge that most buildings in the area were operating in “blatant violation” of structural regulations and safety standards.
On Tuesday, hours after a massive fire at a hotel in the congested locality claimed 17 lives, traders and hotel owners, too, agreed the area was a ticking time bomb.
Alarmed by the state of affairs in Karol Bagh — which has a mix of residential and commercial structures — Jain directed the fire services to “immediately” conduct inspections of buildings in the area that have more than four floors and begin sealing of nonconforming properties.
“Almost every other building here are five- or- six-storeyed, whereas the building bylaws allow only up to four storeys. The rule also states that all these buildings should have parking, but it doesn’t appear that any of the building here has such a provision,” Jain said, adding that the fire department will give him a daily report on the number of buildings sealed in Karol Bagh.
According to Balan Mani, vicepresident of Delhi Hotel and Restaurant Owners’ Association, Karol Bagh saw a retail and hotel boom over the last four decades. And the special status awarded to the area has just led to further commercialisation, traders maintained.
Karol Bagh, Shahjahanabad (Walled City) and Sadar Paharaganj were declared Special Areas in the Master Plan of Delhi, 2021.
According to provisions of the Master Plan, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation was supposed to prepare a special area redevelopment plan.
While North corporation officials said they have prepared the plan, it is yet to be notified. In absence of development control norms, traders admit there are violations in buildings used for commercial purposes.
“Karol Bagh has always been a Punjabi-dominated area and residents used to give portions of their houses on rent, mostly to Bengalis and South Indians. This
ON WEDNESDAY, ONLY 10 MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY OF 13 WILL RETURN TO THEIR HOMES IN KOCHI AND ERNAKULAM
changed from the Asian Games in 1982, when guest houses were allowed in the area,” Mani said. Further, more people started residing in Karol Bagh as refugees from Pakistan started to set up shops in the area while living in the adjacent Rajinder Nagar.
From 20-25 guest houses in the late 1990s, Karol Bagh is now dotted with nearly 200 small budget hotels. “Technically, these lodging facilities are not ‘hotels’. They are guest houses where no kitchen can operate. But this has been our long standing demand that the rule be tweaked as almost all accommodations are running kitchens, said Mani, a second generation hotelier.
Arun Gupta of the Delhi Hotel Mahasangh said the fault lies with the civic agency and the Delhi Police, both of which are licensing authorities. But none of these authorities follow up by asking for the completion certificates of these buildings, he said.
“The annual fee for renewal of police and civic agency’s health trade licence is just ₹500. While most buildings have approved building plans, a majority of them take completion certificates from the civic agencies to avoid inspection. So, the whole system is operating with just a one-time building plan approval and an annual licence renewal, which is nothing but an affidavit,” Gupta said.
“We hope this incident brings a change to the area. Buildings are made safer and fire norms are adhered to,” said Shruti Singh, a resident of Karol Bagh. The rooftop restaurant was illegally constructed Entry to the rooftop was closed to obtain no objection certificate from the fire department in December 2017, but it was (illegally) reopened later Restaurant and a kitchen were illegally operating on the rooftop
A temporary structure was constructed on the rooftop using fibre sheets The emergency exists at the back of the guesthouse but it was found locked
(According to Delhi Fire Service and Delhi Police) ers have Guesthouseown
Police’s to apply to Delhi licensing department asks Delhi Police then health trade civic agency for licence and fire department for fire clearance Almost an hour-and-ahalf-long delay in informing the fire department
Fire spread quickly through the building due to wooden flooring and wall panels
The rooftop was covered with fibre sheet, which caught fire and blocked a possible exit route
Staff didn't know how to use the firefighting equipment
The guests couldn’t open the windows because of the complicated locks and
The guesthouse are health trade licences renewed annually
Fire safety clearance certificateis renewedevery three years NEWDELHI: Half an hour before 13 members of an extended family hailing from Kerala could check out of the Karol Bagh hotel, the fatal fire cut short their “tour of a lifetime”. On Wednesday, only 10 members of the family will return to their homes in Kochi and Ernakulam in Kerala.
The remaining three were among 17 people who were killed in a major fire at the Hotel Arpit Palace on Tuesday morning.
Fire department officials said the fire started in a room on the first floor due to a suspected short circuit and spread through the building.
Sixteen members of this family from Kerala had arrived in Ghaziabad last Thursday to attend a relative’s wedding the next day. But the trip was not just about the wedding. Three members had returned home after the wedding, but the rest of them had plans to tour Delhi and parts of north India before returning home on February 15.
“We had returned from Mathura on Monday and my elderly mother was tired and had spent the entire day sleeping,” said PC Som Shekharan who lost his Nailini Amma, 84, a sister Jayshree, 53, and a brother Vidyasagar, 59 to the horrific blaze.
The family had booked four rooms in the hotel as part of a package through a tour operator. The hotel was to only serve as their night stay.
They were to leave for Haridwar early Tuesday morning, and from there they had planned to go Amritsar.
Surender Kumar, a retired businessman and one of the members of the family, said power failure occurred soon after he woke up at 4am. “Within minutes, I heard people screaming,” said Kumar.
Shekharan too heard his sister screaming and opened the door of his room, but was forced to shut it immediately. “There was very dense smoke outside. I wanted to rush and save my mother and sister who were screaming, but it just wasn’t possible,” said Shekharan, an assistant manager with LIC.
Firefighters rescued Shekharan and nine others of his family by smashing the windows of the hotel.
Uma Nair, the bride’s mother, said her daughter and her son-inlaw haven’t been informed about the tragedy.
“They broke caste barriers to marry each other and are currently in the Maldives. We do not know how to break the news to them,” said Nair.
The hotel had also lodged eight tourists from Myanmar who were on a pilgrimage. They had visited Nepal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and had checked into the Karol Bagh hotel on Monday.
“They were so excited about the pilgrimage that they had brought along a professional photographer for the trip. The photographer and two women were killed in the fire while another member of the group jumped from the window to save herself. She has hurt her spine,” said Gyandeep, a tour operator, who was assisting the group in India.
A chef from the hotel, 30-yearold Tara Chand, had also jumped from the roof but could not survive. Hailing from Uttarakhand, Chand is survived by a wife and four children, the youngest of who is 18 months old.
“There were at least 10 staffers sleeping on the terrace. I am angry that they all escaped without caring to wake up my brother,” said Chand’s brother, Khilaaf, who also works in a Delhi hotel.