India’s recurring fire tragedies expose chronic enforcement failures

A series of deadly fires reveals systemic negligence embedded deep within regulatory enforcement.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

‘The fire that killed 25 people at a nightclub in Goa this month has been described asa shocking failure of safetyenforcement, but records of similar incidents over the past few years show that the conditions leading to such disasters are not new.

Police, fire officials and municipal documents across states reveal a recurring pattern in public-facing establishments where large numbers of people gather: construction violations, absence of mandatory clearances, blocked escape routes, overloaded wiring and a lack of functional fire-safety equipment. The Goa accident, investigators told this newspaper, shows the same elements that appeared in at least three earlier cases in Delhi and Gujarat.

In May 2024, at a gaming zone in Rajkot, 27 people, many of them children, died after a fire swept through a tin-and-thermocol structure operating without a fire department NOC.

Asingle exit, large quantities of flammable material and welding activity inside the premises accelerated the blaze and trapped people before firefighters arrived. Earlier that same month, a neonatal centrein Delhi’s Vivek Vihar caught fire late at night, killing seven infants. Investigators found expired licences, overstocked oxygen cylinders, nonfunctional fire extinguishers and no emergency exit.

In 2019, 17 people died at Hotel Arpit Palace in Karol Bagh, where wooden panelling, locked windows and narrow internal passages allowed a nighttime fire to spread rapidly, Although the hotel had passed a prior fire-safety inspection, subsequent inquiries documented significant violations inside the building.