Rau's IAS Tragedy: Why Rs 58,000 Cr Coaching Industry Needs Strict Regulations

Protests broke out in the National Capital on Sunday, July 28 after three civil services aspirants died after the basement of a building housing a coaching centre was flooded following heavy rain in central Delhi’s OId Rajinder Nagar area. The protesting students raised slogans against Delhi’s civic body and the coaching centre and sought action against those responsible.

Visuals from Old Rajinder Nagar showed the basement of Rau’s IAS Study Circle completely flooded on Saturday evening. The three students were killed after they were trapped for hours when water suddenly entered the basement of the coaching centre building on Saturday.

The victims were identified as Shreya Yadav (25) from Uttar Pradesh, Tanya Soni (25) from Telangana, and Navin Dalwin (28) from Kerala.

Rau’s IAS Study Circle coaching centre was using a basement as a library, even though civic authorities had said it could be used only for parking or storage purposes. The institute received a No Objection Certificate (NOC) earlier this month, in which clearance was given for the three-storey building, a stilt parking space beneath the building, and a basement, which was supposed to be used as a storage area.

The owner of the coaching institute accepted that the basement of the institute did not have any drainage facilities. It has also been reported that it had only one entry and exit point.

The Master Plan of Delhi 2021 (MPD 2021) and Unified Building Bylaws (UBBL) 2016 provide clear guidelines on basement usage, yet rules are flouted by the majority of people. On Monday, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) sealed five more basements, including those of popular centres like Drishti IAS Institute, Vajiram and Ravi Institute, and Sri Ram IAS Institute. In the past two days, the MCD has sealed 20 basements of coaching centres in Old Rajinder Nagar and Mukherjee Nagar.

Delhi Police arrested five people including four co-owners of the basement.

Following the tragedy in Old Rajinder Nagar, four states including Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh have ordered a survey of building housing coaching institutions and also launched a crackdown on libraries operating in basements.

Why India’s Coaching Industry Needs Strict Regulations?

In June 2023, 61 students were injured while trying to escape a four-storey building occupied by hundreds when a fire on the ground floor a little after 12 pm filled the upper floors with smoke in north Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar.

Following the Mukherjee Nagar fire incident, Delhi Police submitted a report to Delhi High Court that as many as 583 coaching institutes were running in Delhi. According to the report, out of 583 coaching institutes, only 67 have fire safety certificates, while 516 institutes do not have a fire safety certificate.

Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar said the coaching industry in India, which guides civil service, engineering, and medical studies aspirants, has turned into a ‘flourishing industry with high returns’ and called for examination for their aspirants.

“Coaching has become a flourishing industry with high returns and the kind of advertisements, I said, need to be examined. Every penny spent on advertisements is coming from the student. Every new building is coming from the student,” Dhankhar said.

He told the Rajya Sabha that there is a need “for an approach that can go a long way in tackling it”.

According to Infinium Global Research, a consultancy firm based in Pune, the market revenue of the coaching industry in India was around Rs 58,088 crore in March 2022. The coaching industry’s growth is expected to reach Rs 1,33,995 crore by 2028, growing at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 7-8 per cent.

The total goods and services tax (GST) collected from coaching centres across the country has more than doubled in the last five years. The total GST collected from coaching increased from Rs 2,240.73 crore in the financial year 2018-19 (FY19) to Rs 5,517.45 crore in 2023-24, as per government data.

In 2022, the UPSC 2022 preliminary examination saw more than 11 lakh aspirants competing for 1,011 seats, and over 18 lakh students attempted NEET for 91,927 MBBS seats in 612 government and private medical colleges across the country.  

The National Crime Records Bureau data shows that 13,044 students died by suicide in 2022 and failure in examination was cited as the cause behind more than 2,000 suicides. Kota, the coaching hub of India, alone reported 26 student suicides in 2023, as per police reports.

In January this year, the Ministry of Education released guidelines for regulating private coaching centres across the country. As per the guidelines, coaching institutes providing training for professional courses will require registration, cannot enroll students below 16 years of age or charge exorbitant fees, and provide psychological and mental health support to students.

The guidance followed concerns at the national level about the growing number of unregulated private coaching centres charging excess fees and causing undue stress on students that resulted in student suicides.

Currently, some states have a legal framework to regulate private coaching and tution classes including Bihar, Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Manipur. Last year, the Rajasthan government presented a bill termed the Rajasthan Coaching Institutes (Coaching and Regulation) Bill, 2023 in the wake of rising suicides in Kota.