Delhi: Windowless, cramped rooms IAS aspirants' lot with slight chance of success

New Delhi, Jul 30 (PTI) Living in small windowless PGs, the only consolation for many civil service aspirants is that one day, when they become officers, they will have servants round-the-clock.

The Rajinder Nagar coaching centre flooding incident has put the spotlight on the poor conditions many civil service aspirants choose to stay in to save money and fulfil their dreams of becoming IAS officers.

Across the many coaching hubs in Delhi, such as Mukherjee Nagar and Old Rajinder Nagar, the story remains the same.

A civil services aspirant from Uttar Pradesh, who has been staying in a room on the ground floor in Rajinder Nagar for the last one and a half years, said, "Almost every house owner in Rajinder Nagar and Mukherjee Nagar has turned their residence into a paying guest accommodation." Another UPSC aspirant, a 28-year-old, who takes classes at a coaching centre in Mukherjee Nagar, said there are far too many students and far too little space in the area, leaving those from poorer families with few choices for lodging.

"To earn good money, the owners of the PGs divide one room with a curtain if the room is big. Such rooms accommodate around five to six students," he said.

The common refrain among the aspirants is, "Abhi jhel lo, ek bar naukri lag gai, to aage piche naukar-chaakar honge hi (Suffer now, we'll have servants soon)." Several civil services aspirants living in the two city coaching hubs say they stay in windowless basements, which get inundated every time it rains heavily. Such rooms cost half as much as rooms on the ground or upper floors, they say.

"If someone wants to stay on the ground or upper floors, they need to spend at least Rs 25,000 to 30,000 a month. Those who are either staying in basements are paying somewhere around Rs 15,000 to 20,000 a month," another civil service aspirant said.

Days after three civil services aspirants died in the basement of a coaching institute in Old Rajinder Nagar as a result of rain-induced flooding, many students in the area said they are constantly risking their lives living in such basements — all the same, they are not above glorifying the struggle.

"It's all about the glory of civil services. Hardly anyone complains about such facts," a student said.

Not only PGs, but even classes are overcrowded with no proper facilities.

According to several accounts, if a classroom has a strength of 100 students, the owners try to accommodate more than 120 to 125 students.

"Those who are unable to sit or take class receive recorded video material to sit in the basement and to study there in the library," a 25-year-old civil aspirant said.

Renting out basements as PGs is unlawful as the Master Plan for Delhi (MPD) 2021 permits such spaces to be used only as storage, parking, and utility areas.

"Suddenly, the government is being strict but this is just a phase as an incident has happened. Nothing will be implemented on the ground," another IAS aspirant from Assam said.

"Such a state is not peculiar to the coaching institute in Rajinder Nagar. They all have the same problem," he said. PTI BM SLB BM VN VN