Following the incident of the hostel collapse in Delhi, experts have proposed a number of solutions to improve the safety of student accommodation. Professor Sangramsingh Parmar, an associate professor and head of the Department of Spatial Design at Ananta University, noted that the problem goes beyond mere physical condition, affecting the mental health of students who often live in small, windowless rooms facing no exterior view.
The situation became critical on September 6, 2026, when a five-story hostel named Hostel Daze collapsed in the Satya Niketan area, located behind the South Campus of Delhi University, killing seven students while they were sleeping. The building, which was about 50 years old, had been converted into a hostel just weeks earlier, in August, with residents reporting that renovations, including basement work, continued while they lived there.
The building owner had long since left the city and was not conducting local oversight. Shortly after the tragedy, the Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University ordered an inspection of hostel capacities, and the Delhi government proposed a new PG licensing policy, marking the first attempt to regulate this type of housing.
The collapse exposed a long-standing issue in Delhi: a shortage of student accommodation. Over seven hundred thousand students study at Delhi University, yet the number of hostel rooms is less than 8,000. According to a Hindustan Times report, over 30,000 undergraduate students applied for a hostel spot in 2025, with less than one-tenth receiving one.
Remaining students sought private housing in areas like Satya Niketan, in buildings not originally designed for such a large population. Two experts—an architect and an urban planner—suggested not just building more, but implementing specific, actionable structural and behavioral measures that could serve as a blueprint for any Indian city.
Visible to the naked eye
Architect and urban planner Dikshu K Kukreja, whose firm designed the original JNU campus, pointed to a specific engineering error that caused the collapse. Delhi is in Seismic Zone 4, a high earthquake risk zone. The Hostel Daze building was constructed gradually over decades, floor by floor, without reinforced concrete columns or beams, relying solely on load-bearing walls capable of supporting only a limited weight.
Kukreja emphasized that this was a fundamentally flawed design, easily noticeable, but completely ignored. He compared the building to a living organism requiring regular maintenance and monitoring. However, in this case, he said, no amount of technical maintenance could fix the core problem because the building should never have been built in the first place.
Awareness is not the problem
For Parmar, the failure has deeper roots concerning society as a whole. He stated that society and the country have failed at all levels. Existing regulations cover corridor width, number of stairs, and the ratio of windows to floor area, but someone consciously chose to ignore them, and everyone in the chain knew it.
He noted that such incidents occur regularly and are often dismissed as accidents. It is time to focus on the root problem—mindset—as there is a lack of drive to improve living conditions for students. Furthermore, the legal grey area surrounding PGs exacerbates the situation, as these are residential premises converted into PGs with extremely low living standards; it is a complex problem.
Parmar is skeptical of the recently proposed Delhi solution, which allows PGs to expand and rebuild on larger plots. He believes the problem is not space, as the influx of students will be endless. Solving the issue only at the planning or land-use level will only address a temporary concern, not the fundamental one.
Both experts agree that the true solution must be both literally structural and systemic. They presented the following action plan.
Plan for Safe Housing
- PG assessment analogous to restaurants. Parmar's first proposal is to introduce a visible, periodic quality of life indicator, rather than a one-time approval. He suggests a system where PGs are regularly assessed based on parameters such as ventilation, floor area, fire exits, and structural integrity, with results published for students and parents before signing a lease agreement.
- Monitoring using modern technologies. Parmar believes that technology is used in all aspects of public life and should be applied to track structural failures and hazards, citing the experience of Taiwan and Korea, where sensors record wind, rain, and structural stress, alerting authorities if thresholds are exceeded.
- Mandatory and controlled structural certification. Parmar insists that the certification of structural engineers is vital. Although technically every city requires a stamp from a certified engineer on blueprints, this rule is regularly violated. He demands that this certification be mandatory and controlled through a centralized registry, similar to medical licenses.
- Design considering natural light, air, and space. Kukreja's main principles are simple and already enshrined in the National Building Code: access to daylight, adequate ventilation, and minimum floor area per student. However, he believes the current minimum in Bengaluru—70 square feet per student—is too small. He recommends closer to 200 square feet per student, distributed approximately as 100 sq. ft. for the room itself, 35–40 sq. ft. for corridors, toilets, and stairs, and about 60 sq. ft. for common facilities such as a dining hall or reading room.
- Viewing quality of life as long-term savings, not initial costs. Parmar objects to the idea that safe buildings are unaffordable. He argues that initial investments are not significantly different, and small additional costs for quality materials pay off in decades of comfort and reduced maintenance.
- Integrating design into school and university education. Parmar promotes the idea of incorporating design into the curriculum alongside standard scientific disciplines. He also believes that architects should take on volunteer work to improve housing for low-income populations.
- Providing on-campus housing as a standard, not an exception. Kukreja's central argument is that universities should be legally obligated to provide on-campus accommodation wherever possible. He notes that students from smaller towns often lack support in unfamiliar cities, which is especially dangerous for women. If campus housing is impossible, universities should officially take responsibility for the PGs where their students reside.
- Designing for community, not just shelter. Kukreja cites the original design of the JNU hostel: 10x10 foot rooms with a small private balcony. He emphasizes that a student should not be confined to a closed room, and access to a balcony promotes connection with and respect for nature.
Changes within reach
The shortage of hostel spaces in Delhi has accumulated over decades and will not be solved overnight. However, the proposed measures are not hypothetical. Sensors recording structural stress already exist, and the 200 square foot standard has a working precedent at JNU. Since licensing policy is already under discussion, the missing element is not knowing what safe student housing should look like, but the willingness to provide and recognize the value of these measures.