The Rajya Sabha on Monday held a heated discussion on Delhi’s tragedy in which three UPSC aspirant students from different parts of the country died by drowning when a coaching centre’s basement in Old Rajinder Nagar in Central Delhi was flooded on Saturday.

Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar allowed a short duration discussion when several members drew his attention towards the incident. Members demanded a law be enacted to regulate the functioning of the coaching centres.

Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said  that no amount of expressing sorrow would compensate the families who lost their bright children.

“We should pay tributes to those who died but we must consider how such incidents do not recur, we must see who will ensure that. The responsibility has to be fixed for negligence,” he said.

Initiating the debate, Sudhanshu Trivedi of the BJP said no action was taken even when complaints had been made regarding the use of basements. Only on last 9th July, the fire department had given a no-objection certificate for the basement.

Blaming the AAP government of Delhi, he said the municipal corporation was also controlled by the party. He said the party was making heavy expenditure on its advertisements but what was the expenditure on cleaning of sewers.

Tiruchi Siva (DMK) said Delhi’s Lt Governor had assumed responsibility for several of Delhi’s functions and the Chief Secretary responded to his orders and ignored the Chief Minister.

AAP member Sanjay Singh said his party’s government in Delhi provided water pipelines to 99.6 per cent of Delhi’s unauthorized colonies. He said Delhi’s officials did not act on instructions given by Delhi Ministers and they listened to the Lt Governor only. The AAP government was not allowed to run, he said. The BJP was in power for many years in Delhi, he said.

Bharatiya Janata Party member Bansuri Swaraj said the Aam Aadmi Party government’s “utter and absolute apathy led to the death of three IAS aspirants in a coaching centre in Delhi.”

“The students came from Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala. They came here to prepare for the UPSC examination but because of the Delhi government, they lost their lives,” she said.

Randeep Singh Surjewala (Congress) said the coaching centres flourished because jobs were in short supply. There was privatization of education as 88,000 government schools were closed in the country.

There were lakhs of vacancies of teachers in schools and even colleges and universities. A law should be enacted to control the coaching centres, he said.