PLAYING WITH FIRE

Uphaar to Goa: India's unlearned safety lessons

- KANU SARDA

Twenty-eight years is a lifetime in public policy. It is long enough to build institutions, correct mistakes and ensure that a tragedy never repeats. But in India, the Uphaar Cinema fire of 1997, which took 59 lives, has aged only in memory, no lessons learned. From a packed cinema hall in South Delhi to a crowded nightclub in Goa, the script remains eerily similar—illegal structures, missing fire clearances, blocked exits, delayed emergency response and promises made after tragedy.

What sets Uphaar apart is not just the magnitude of the tragedy, but the doggedness of those who would not let the system forget. After years of litigation, the Supreme Court in 2015 imposed a ₹60 crore fine on the Ansal brothers—Sushil and Gopal—who owned the cinema. The court directed that the money be used to create a trauma centre in Delhi. The logic was simple—had emergency trauma care been swift and specialised, many lives could have been saved.

After a decade of what looked like inaction, the Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) approached the apex court again. But, the Delhi government informed the bench it had already fulfilled the spirit of the order by setting up three hospitals. Its affidavit said the money, meant for a trauma centre in Dwarka, was spent on facilities at the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Mangolpuri, the Satyawadi Raja Harish Chander Hospital in Narela and the Siraspur Hospital. However, none of these hospitals is operational today.