EnglishHindi
- Follow us
-
-
-
-
-
-
Satya Niketan Building Collapse And PG Rules: The collapse of a five-story building in Satya Niketan, South Delhi, has exposed the illicit business operating in the name of PGs and private hostels in the capital. According to reports, despite having extremely poor facilities, these PGs and hostels charge children Rs 20,000 to 25,000 per bed per month. The building that collapsed in Satya Niketan was also a hostel.
At least seven children died in this accident. Several similar incidents have occurred in Delhi’s Rajendra Nagar and Mukherjee Nagar areas before, but no government took any action. The Satya Niketan incident has drawn attention to the rules governing PGs and hostels in Delhi. However, you may be surprised to know that there are no specific rules and regulations in place for this purpose. More than 200,000 PGs and hostels operate in Delhi, housing millions of children.
According to the report, the Satya Niketan house was built on a 55-yard plot. Each floor had four rooms. Including the basement, it had a total of six floors. Each room had three beds, and the rent for each bed was 12,000 rupees. Thus, the house had 60 beds in approximately 20 rooms. At 12,000 rupees per bed, the rent for this house was Rs 7,000 to 7.5 lakh per month.
The question is, who controls the large number of PGs and private hostels operating in Delhi? Do they have licenses? Does the government determine how much rent can be charged from students? If PG operators are charging arbitrary rents or failing to provide amenities, where can students complain?
It’s important to know the answers to these questions because PGs in Delhi are no longer limited to renting out one or two rooms in a house. They’ve become a multi-crore business. Entire buildings, from coaching hubs to universities and major employment centers, have been converted into PGs. Each building has dozens of rooms. In many places, multiple beds are placed in a single room. Students pay rent, electricity, and water bills, and even pay for food. Yet, there’s no guarantee of safety.
Interestingly, there is no separate law for PGs in Delhi that mandates mandatory registration, regular inspections, and oversight by a designated regulatory body. This does not mean that PGs are completely unregulated. While different regulations may apply to building safety, land use, fire safety, and other matters, there is no unified system for PG businesses that allows operators to obtain a single license and ensures full government accountability.
In 1993, the central government launched the Paying Guest Accommodation Scheme. Its purpose was to provide affordable and clean accommodation to domestic and foreign tourists in people’s homes. This scheme had an important condition: the landlord must reside in the house where the PG facility was being provided. Later, responsibility for this scheme passed to the Delhi government. In 2000, the then Sheila Dikshit government approved its Paying Guest Accommodation Scheme.
Under this scheme, the landlord could register with the Delhi Tourism Department. No more than half of the house’s rooms were permitted for use as PG accommodation. The maximum limit was four rooms or eight beds. However, this arrangement was made for the time.
There is no separate rent control law for PGs in Delhi that sets a maximum rent per bed in each area. This means that PG rents are generally negotiated between the operator and the students. In areas with high student demand, the operator charges higher rents. This is why, in many popular areas, a single bed can be charged between 20,000 and 25,000 rupees per month.
Now, the proposed system calls for a major change in this regard. The Paying Guest Accommodation Regulation and Protection Bill, 2026, proposes setting different rent limits, or rent bands, for PGs. If implemented, this system will provide the government with a way to determine the rents that can be charged in different categories of PGs. This is important because market demand is currently the primary driver of rent in many places. However, controlling rents will not be easy. Land and housing prices in Delhi are very high. PG operators also include the cost of maintenance, electricity, water, food, and other amenities in the rent. Therefore, the government must strike a balance that provides relief to students, while not imposing regulations that would destroy the entire business.
For breaking news and live news updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Read more on Latest India News on India.com.
