Narrow exits, no windows: Why Noida coaching centres are fire traps

Noida: A dingy staircase in a five-storey building in Sector 49 leads to classrooms where nearly 200 students prepare for competitive exams like JEE, NEET and CUET. Outside, high-tension cables dangle loosely from a power pole.

In Sector 62, abutting Delhi-Meerut Expressway, dozens of centres operate from residential buildings squeezed into lanes too narrow for fire trucks. Most of these buildings have single entry and exit, have no fire safety equipment and are stacked with students in windowless rooms.Across the city’s coaching clusters in sectors 2, 9, 12, and 62, and in Greater Noida’s Alpha and Dadri, centres have mushroomed without oversight.

After a three-day inspection of 92 coaching centres across Noida, Greater Noida and Dadri this week, the fire department sealed 13 institutes for operating without fire exits, extinguishers, ventilation or access for fire tenders.The centres — Om Education Coaching Centre in Sector 149, Basu Coaching Centre in Sector 49 and NIEST Institute of Computer and IT Technology in Sector 22 among them — operated as fire hazards in plain sight, a senior fire safety official said.

Most had no emergency exits and lacked proper ventilation. Managers could not produce mandatory registration documents or safety certificates. Many occupied lanes so narrow that fire tenders could not reach them.

The physical layout itself became a trap, the officer said.The crackdown came barely days after the June 22 fire at a coaching centre in Lucknow killed 15. Investigations, so far, have revealed glaring similarities — buildings also housing commercial operations, no emergency exits and smoke ventilation systems.The Noida inspections, officials said, were a direct response, ordered by the district magistrate to forestall a similar tragedy in the city. On Friday, too, 26 institutes were inspected — five in Sector 2, two each in sectors 9 and 12, six in Sector 62, four in Dadri and seven in the Alpha commercial belt. Of these, two were sealed, and eight others served notices for failing to maintain mandatory student records and safety documentation.Under the Uttar Pradesh Coaching Regulation Act, centres must obtain registration, maintain student attendance records, install adequate firefighting equipment, mark emergency exits clearly, ensure evacuation routes, provide sufficient ventilation and maintain structural stability certificates. Multistorey buildings must ensure periodic maintenance of firefighting systems and documented emergency evacuation plans.

Yet across Noida, these requirements remained largely acknowledged on paper, ignored in practice.Inside the centres, the reality of this negligence played out in daily routines that had become so normalised that few questioned them. “When one batch ends and another begins, the staircase gets clogged within minutes. You can’t walk freely. You have to wait for people to squeeze past. It’s become so routine that nobody notices it anymore.

But if something were to go wrong, I don’t think this building could be emptied quickly.

We’ve never practised an evacuation or had a fire drill,” a teacher at a private coaching centre in Sector 2 told TOI.For the students themselves, most of them teenagers absorbed in the gruelling preparation for JEE and NEET, the dangers had been largely invisible until Lucknow. A student preparing for NEET at a coaching institute in Sector 49 said the tragedy had really shaken him.

“Earlier, I never paid attention to things like narrow staircases or studying in closed AC rooms, but now those are the first things I notice whenever I enter a coaching centre.

We hope nothing like that ever happens here, but the authorities should make sure every institute follows proper safety norms instead of waiting for another accident,” he said.Parents, too, grappled with the tension between ambition and safety.

Priya Sharma, whose daughter attends a centre in Sector 62, said: “We send our daughter to coaching for two to three hours every day. After what happened in Lucknow, we constantly worry whether the building is safe or if there is any way out in case of an emergency.”Rajesh Verma, whose son studies in Sector 2, said there was an accountability gap. “Most of these centres, which charge lump sum fees, operate from buildings with dozens of students crammed into small classrooms.

Parents rarely get to know about their safety compliance. We only realise the risks after tragedies or inspection drives. Authorities should conduct regular checks, not only after accidents.”District inspector of schools (Noida) Chandrasekhar said coaching operators have been directed to immediately comply with fire safety standards, building safety, registration and documentation. “Any institute found violating norms during future inspections will face immediate sealing and legal action without prior notice. The enforcement drive will continue across the district.”