Six coaching units in Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar shut

The civic body has also issued show cause notices to 259 such units for alleged violations of building bye-laws and Master Plan of Delhi (2021)

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) building department sealed six more coaching centres in north Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar on Monday, taking the overall count of shut premises to 61, officials said.

The drive after a July 25 direction by the Delhi high court in the wake of a June 15 blaze at a coaching centre in Mukherjee Nagar — which resulted in the injury of 61 students. (Sanchit Khanna/HT)

The civic body has also issued show cause notices to 259 such units for alleged violations of building bye-laws and Master Plan of Delhi(2021).

A senior municipal official associated with the sealing drive said that on Monday, action was taken against commercial complexes located near the Batra cinema complex and Indira Vikas colony.

“Action against coaching centres operating in basement and mezzanine floors has been completed and now we are taking up the units operating on first, second and third floors. During the instructions of high court and show cause notices being issued to them, many coaching centres had more than 50 children sitting in their premises without any valid fire NOC. Under the land use, they were declared to be office spaces but they were being used for running coaching classes,” the official said, asking not to be named.

The civic body has also issued show cause notices to 46 commercial activities, according to officials.

MCD started its drive in the first week of August against coaching centres and commercial units operating without fire clearance certificates and non-compliant with norms laid down under the city’s Master Plan-2021.

This came after a July 25 direction by the Delhi high court in the wake of a June 15 blaze at a coaching centre in Mukherjee Nagar — which resulted in the injury of 61 students.

In a report submitted to the court, Delhi Police and Delhi Fire Services said that only 67 out of 583 coaching centres in the city have valid fire clearances.

On Saturday, MCD sealed shut 16 properties, out which nine were coaching institutes, officials said. Earlier this week, HT reported that 104 paying guest (PG) accommodations in the area operating in violation of building by-law regulations were served show cause notices. This came after a massive fire broke out two weeks ago in a women’s PG unit in N Block, Mukherjee Nagar.

To be sure, MCD does not issue licenses to operate PG units or Coaching units.

Keshav Aggarwal, president of coaching centres’ union Educators’ Society said that they have filed a petition to be party to the case and a review petition. “ We are being tossed from one department to another. If I run coaching center on one floor, I am being asked to submit layout plans for entire building. It is practically impossible to get a fire NOC,” he added.