In a tragic incident, three UPSC aspirants died after being trapped in the basement of a popular coaching centre in Delhi. Rainwater that gushed into the basement drowned them. The victims have been identified as Tania Soni, Shreya Yadav – both aged 25 – and Navin Delvin, 28. While Tania was from Telangana and Shreya was from Uttar Pradesh, Navin was a resident of Kerala. The death triggered massive protests by the students and other aspirants. The protestors alleged that most of these UPSC coaching centres neglect the safety concerns of aspirants.
In Arunachal Pradesh too, in the Itanagar Capital Region, many coaching institutes have come up in the last few years. Many provide coaching for UPSC, APCS, and other competitive examinations. Learning from the Delhi incident, the local authorities should conduct a checking of these institutes. They should be instructed to follow the rules. The safety concerns of the aspirants who join their coaching centres should be taken care of. Arunachal is a disaster-prone region and therefore safety of buildings should be the first concern. Furthermore, many of them charge extremely high fees. This also needs to be regulated.