The discovery that all 16 private coaching institutes surveyed in Alandi were operating without municipal registration has exposed a regulatory gap that extends beyond paperwork. In the wake of the Diveagar tragedy, in which eight Std XI students died during a day trip organised by a private coaching institute, the civic survey has raised a more fundamental question: how can establishments responsible for large numbers of young people operate without basic municipal scrutiny?
Alandi Municipal Council’s survey found that none of the 16 coaching classes had registered with the civic body. The survey also flagged unauthorised constructions and pending property-tax dues. The institute linked to the Diveagar incident reportedly owes Rs 45,634 in property tax and has faced questions over unauthorised structures. These findings indicate that the problem is not limited to the conduct of one outing or one establishment. It involves the civic status, physical premises and institutional accountability of a wider network of private education providers.
The immediate trigger for the survey was the Diveagar incident. Forty-two students from an Alandi coaching institute had been taken on a day’s trip to Diveagar in Raigad district, where eight students died. The tragedy has brought renewed attention to the safety arrangements followed by coaching classes during outings and to the responsibility of institutions that operate outside the regular school system.
The distinction between coaching classes and formal schools is important. Coaching institutes may be central to students’ daily routines and families’ expectations, but they do not necessarily fall under the same visible administrative framework as schools. Activist Sudhakar Kshirsagar said coaching classes often operated outside the regular school structure and therefore required stronger scrutiny. He also pointed to the need for coordination between civic authorities and the education department.
That coordination gap is central to the Alandi case. A municipal council can examine registration, building permissions, property taxation and aspects of local compliance. Education authorities may have a role in monitoring institutions that provide instruction. Police and emergency agencies may become relevant when student safety, transport or group outings are involved. When these responsibilities are not connected, an establishment can remain visible to families while remaining insufficiently visible to the institutions responsible for oversight.
The survey’s findings show how several forms of non-compliance can coexist. The absence of municipal registration means the civic body did not have a complete formal record of the coaching institutes it was expected to regulate locally. Unauthorised construction raises questions about whether the premises match approved building plans and whether students are using spaces that were not cleared for such occupation. Property-tax arrears add a financial and administrative dimension to the problem. None of these issues alone establishes the cause of the Diveagar tragedy, but together they show how weak routine enforcement can leave safety questions unexamined.
Residents have criticised the authorities for acting only after a fatal accident. Resident Somnath Gaikwad described the situation as a wider failure of enforcement rather than an isolated violation, pointing to the absence of mandatory registrations, building permissions and safety compliance. His criticism reflects the difference between reactive administration and preventive regulation. Notices issued after an incident can begin a compliance process, but they do not show that the same risks were being checked before students were placed under an institute’s supervision.
The proposed response from the Alandi Municipal Council is to issue notices to coaching institutes and property owners operating without the required permissions. Chief officer Madhav Khandekar said establishments had been directed to obtain the necessary approvals within the stipulated period and that action would be initiated against those that failed to comply. This establishes an administrative next step, but the report does not specify the length of the compliance period, the penalties involved or whether any classes will be closed while their status is assessed.
The absence of those details is significant because registration alone cannot establish that a coaching centre is safe. Citizens and activists have called for checks covering registration, taxation, fire safety, structural stability, emergency exits and staff preparedness. These requirements address different risks and would involve different forms of verification. A valid municipal registration would not, by itself, confirm that a building is structurally sound, that emergency exits are usable or that staff are trained to respond to an incident.
Former council member Rahul Chitalkar has called for police and civic authorities to jointly assess safety in coaching classes. He said agencies should conduct a comprehensive audit, verify the legal status of each centre and make student safety mandatory. His proposal reflects the operational reality of these establishments: students spend time inside buildings, travel for activities and may be supervised by staff who are not part of the formal school system. A fragmented inspection system can miss risks that arise between these responsibilities.
The Alandi findings also expose the limits of treating education infrastructure only as a question of teaching. A coaching centre is an urban premises with a daily population, access routes, electrical and structural conditions, emergency requirements and an accountable operator. Its physical location and use are matters of municipal administration, even when its primary activity is educational. If the civic record does not capture such establishments, the city lacks a basic map of where students gather and which authority is responsible for checking the conditions.
The available figures make the scale of the immediate survey clear: all 16 surveyed institutes were found to be unregistered. The report does not establish how many coaching classes operate across Alandi in total, how many students attend them, how many premises have valid building permissions or whether other safety audits have previously been conducted. Those gaps limit what can be concluded about the wider town, but they do not reduce the importance of the finding. A complete failure of registration among the surveyed institutes is itself evidence that routine compliance mechanisms were not functioning effectively.
The issue also has a household dimension. Parents leave children at coaching institutes on the assumption that the premises and activities are adequately supervised. Pintu Vahile, the uncle of one of the victims, said parents assumed their children were safe but that there was no effective oversight of activities or safety standards. That trust is not created by a municipal notice; it depends on institutions being identifiable, inspected and held accountable before an emergency occurs.
Alandi Municipal Council’s action now places the focus on what happens after the notices are issued. The key questions are whether every institute and property owner responds, whether building and safety conditions are separately verified, and whether the education department, police and civic authorities create a coordinated monitoring process. The report confirms the registration failure and the proposed enforcement response. It does not yet establish whether a comprehensive audit has begun or whether a permanent regulatory framework for private coaching classes will follow.
The Alandi case therefore represents more than a post-tragedy inspection. It shows how an expanding category of education-related premises can fall between administrative systems when registration, property compliance, building safety and student protection are treated as separate concerns. The next test will be whether the civic response remains limited to notices or develops into a documented, cross-agency system that identifies coaching centres, verifies their premises and makes student safety a continuing responsibility.
