A fatal building collapse in Delhi's Satya Niketan has sparked widespread fear among students and young professionals living in PGs. Many now question the structural safety of their homes, grappling with affordability and a lack of owner transparency.

For students and young professionals who leave their hometowns for Delhi in pursuit of their dreams, a paying guest accommodation gradually becomes much more than four walls and a bed. It becomes a second home where they return after college or work, have their meals, prepare for exams, attend late-night meetings and call their families before going to sleep. But the collapse of a five-storey building housing a boys' PG in south Delhi's Satya Niketan on September 6, which claimed seven lives, has shaken that sense of security and made many question whether the place they call home is truly safe.

A Newfound Fear in a Second Home

For students and young professionals currently living in PGs across Delhi-NCR, the tragedy has brought a question into their rooms that many had never considered before: Do I really know how safe the building I sleep in is? Until now, choosing a PG was largely about rent, food, Wi-Fi and proximity to college or the workplace. The condition of the building, its permissions and approvals, or what would happen in an emergency often remained outside that calculation.Sneha Mishra, who lives at 'New PG for Girls' in Sant Nagar, said the collapse has changed the way she looks at the place she has come to regard as home after moving to Delhi from Deoghar, Jharkhand. “When I came to Delhi from Deoghar, this PG became my second home. I eat, study and sleep here, but I never really thought about whether the place I call home is actually safe,” Mishra told ANI.That thought, she said, now follows her even when she is trying to sleep. “Earlier, I never thought about the condition of the building. Now, when I go to sleep, there is a question in my mind — what if the building we trust with our lives is not safe?” she told ANI.

The Dilemma of Affordability and Hidden Dangers

The worry does not stop with the young people living inside these buildings. It travels back home, to parents who send their children to Delhi believing they have found a secure place to live. “Our parents send us here believing we are safe. After Satya Niketan, many of us have started looking at the roof over our heads differently,” Mishra told ANI.But for many young people, finding a safer place is not simply a matter of making a choice. It is also a matter of being able to afford one. A better-maintained PG can mean a higher monthly rent, something that can be difficult for a student or someone earning an entry-level salary. In a city where every extra thousand rupees matters, safety can end up competing with affordability.Shilpashree Mondal, who lives in a PG in Noida, stated that her budget leaves little room for choice. “I don’t think even a working woman like me has much of a real choice when it comes to choosing where to live. Budget decides most of it, especially in a city like Delhi, where finding a safe and affordable place can be difficult,” Mondal told ANI.The Satya Niketan collapse initially frightened Mondal. But soon, the fear turned into a closer look at the place where she herself lives. “I started thinking, what if something like this happens to my PG too? I somehow convinced myself that it wouldn’t happen, but there are already things that worry me, like problems with the water supply, poor hygiene and dampness in the walls,” she said.Often, she said, the reality of a PG becomes clear only after moving in. “The owner and caretakers often make things look safer and better than they actually are, but you only realise the real problems once you start living there,” Mondal told ANI.

Calls for Transparency and Better Options

For Pallavi Joshi, who hails from Uttarakhand's Haldwani and has been living in a Delhi PG for nearly two years, the collapse has changed an otherwise ordinary nightly routine. “I had never thought about the structure of my PG before. After Satya Niketan, I started noticing how my building is designed and wondering whether there are enough safety measures. Even at night, I sometimes think about what would happen if something went wrong here,” Joshi told ANI.Joshi told ANI that neither her PG owner nor anyone from the management approached the occupants after the incident to discuss their concerns or assure them about the safety of the building. She said PG owners often focus on receiving rent on time, while concerns over safety, hygiene and what happens during an emergency receive less attention.For Vijaya Roy, a student of Delhi University's Ramanujan College preparing for the CAT examination, the uncertainty begins with something as basic as knowing whether the place has the necessary permissions. Around 20 to 25 people live in her PG, she told ANI, but occupants are not always told whether the property has the required approvals. “We don’t even know whether they have permission from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi or not. When we first come to the PG, they demand documents from us, but they don’t show any papers to us,” Roy told ANI.For Roy, students should not have to take the owner's word for it when it comes to the building they are going to sleep in every night. “It should be made mandatory that tenants are able to get the papers from PG owners, so that they know whether the building has the proper permissions and whether the regulations are being followed,” she said.For Delhi University students, the shortage of affordable hostel accommodation makes that dependence on PGs even greater, Roy said. “If adequate hostel facilities are available in colleges, students will have another option. PG owners will not have the same monopoly and may be forced to improve conditions,” she told ANI.For these students and young professionals, the Satya Niketan collapse is no longer something they simply watched on a news screen. It has changed the way they look at their own rooms at the damp patch on a wall, the makeshift partition, the crowded staircase or the roof above their bed.

Government Proposes Stricter Regulations

Keping student safety as a priority, the Delhi government is working on a comprehensive policy to regulate paying guest (PG) accommodations in the national capital, with Urban Development Minister Ashish Sood outlining a series of proposed measures aimed at strengthening safety, security and rent regulation for students.Under the proposed policy, PG operators would be required to obtain a PG Operating Licence and complete both police and municipal verification before running their establishments. The proposed rules would also make CCTV cameras mandatory at entrances and in common areas of PG accommodations, with recordings required to be preserved for 30 days.For PGs housing 15 or more students, operators would be required to employ a licensed night guard between 10 pm and 6 am. Visitor registers would also be made mandatory, while non-resident visitors would be permitted entry between 8 am and 9 pm.The policy would further require every PG to have a warden either residing at the premises or maintaining an office within a 500-metre radius. The warden would have to be physically available within 15 minutes in case of an emergency.To address concerns over arbitrary and high rents, the proposed policy envisages a Rent Regulation Committee that would determine rent bands for different areas. The rent bands would take into account factors including occupancy levels, amenities provided, prevailing market rates and the proximity of the PG to colleges and public transport.The draft framework also proposes the creation of an Institutional Accommodation Committee, comprising college officials, student representatives, a municipal representative and a police liaison officer. (ANI)(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)