DC Edit | Gross Neglect Behind Delhi Blaze

The fire accident at a bed and breakfast unit in south Delhi, which killed 21 people, including 12 foreigners, is unfortunate. It should serve as a wake-up for policymakers about the rising incidence of fire incidents across the country in recent times.

The five-floor narrow building that housed Flourish Stay B&B had no approval from the fire department. It had approval for offering only six rooms for guests, but the B&B unit was illegally offering 25 rooms — four times more than the officially permissible number. The tragedy was perhaps waiting to happen because the building had only one entry-exit point, permanently sealed windows and a sensor-operated main door, making it a virtual death trap.

Though the cause of the fire was not officially ascertained, police suspect an electric short-circuit, one of the most regular causes of fire accidents in urban India. In many cases, experts blamed higher power load and low-capacity internal wiring for the electric short-circuits in India.

The building, where the current fire accident occurred, was also reportedly built 40 years ago, when the power demand was steeply low. The use of air-conditioning units and electric induction plates which were in use at the B&B unit could have increased the power demand, creating grounds for the electric short circuit. Delhi fire safety officials also suspect that multiple wooden and plastic frames erected at the building recently as part of its decor could have made the building highly combustible.

The root cause for the most fire accidents in India, including the current one, is the violation of basic building and fire safety norms, the overexploitation of business opportunity and the corrupt civic administration. It is high time that the BJP, which has been in power at the civic body governing South Delhi since 2007, introspects into what led to the rot in the municipal administration.