Rajya Sabha Takes Up Discussion On Incident Of Death Of Students In A Coaching Institute In Delhi Due To Flooding

Rajya Sabha has taken up a short short-duration discussion on the recent tragic incident of the death of students in a coaching institute in Delhi due to alleged negligence of authorities. Initiating the discussion, Dr. Sudhanshu Trivedi of BJP termed the incident as criminal negligence demanding a detailed investigation into this matter and fixing the responsibilities. He alleged that despite raising concerns about the building bylaws, no step was taken to clean the drainage system. Questioning the Delhi government, he said, the Delhi Jal Board’s deficit has reached to 74 thousand crore rupees and several allegations of corruption have been levelled against the Board.

He also questioned how much money was spent on the cleaning of drainage systems by the city government agencies. He said, no comment came from Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on this tragic incident. Mr Trivedi asked the Delhi government to make a list of Coaching Centers that follow the norms.

Derek O’Brien of TMC also expressed concern over the incident. He however questioned why the house was not allowed to discuss the issues related to the Railway accident, Manipur violence, NEET examination, floods in Assam as well as unemployment and farmer’s issues. He also raised the issue of suicide of students across the country. He said that the commodification of Education was not properly addressed in the National Education Policy. Tiruchi Siva of DMK also spoke on the issue. The discussion is underway.

Earlier, allowing short duration discussion, Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar said the issue concerns the country’s promising youth, urban infrastructure as well as other aspects of governance. The Chairman said, the coaching has become virtually commerce and every time he reads a newspaper, the front one or two pages are of coaching centres advertisements.