Inside Kamla Nagar's PG Market: Amenities Sell, Safety Rarely Comes Up

In Kamla Nagar, the lanes of North Delhi fill early with stalls selling clothes for as little as Rs 200, and with young people hunting for a place to stay. For a student arriving in the capital for the first time, the search often begins with whoever approaches first — sometimes a lemon soda vendor who doubles as a broker for nearby paying-guest accommodations, earning Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 in commission per deal.

One such vendor led the way through lanes of vertical houses joined wall to wall, their signboards promising economical PGs with "all facilities". The first stop was a ground-plus-four-storey girls' PG run by a warden named Pooja, where beds were offered at Rs 16,500 to Rs 19,000 a month in double and triple sharing. The rooms came with air conditioning, attached washrooms, study tables, wardrobes and four meals a day, plus WiFi, a washing machine and an induction cooktop on every floor.

On paper, the package covered most of what a student might need. Up close, other details surfaced. The mess on the fourth floor was still under construction and open on one side, letting in heat and dust, and another floor was being added. Electricity was billed at Rs 14 per unit per room, against domestic rates in Delhi of roughly Rs 3 to Rs 8 per unit and commercial rates of about Rs 6.50 to Rs 9.50. Ventilation was minimal, with windows opening into the property rather than to the outside.

Further down the lane, a PG called Golden Homes offered beds at Rs 13,000 to Rs 14,000, with variations by washroom, room size and sharing. An official there presented the absence of a rent agreement as an advantage, saying most PGs in the area lock students into 11-month agreements, while this one required only a month's notice.

The rooms themselves were reached through an alley barely wide enough for one person. Two bedrooms flanked the passage, each holding two small single beds, study tables and wardrobes so tightly packed that opening a wardrobe left little room to move. Washrooms for the occupants sat across the alley. The rooms smelled stale and musty, and a matchbox-sized room beside the passage had a small window that opened back into the alley. The layout raised questions about evacuation and access for emergency responders, in a city that has seen a boys' hostel collapse in Satya Niketan kill seven people, five of them students. The rooms also looked markedly different from the more spacious, premium images on the property's website.

A few hundred metres away, Gayatri Sadan, a family-run girls' PG, allowed anyone to enter the building freely. The woman managing it, who lived on the third and fourth floors with her extended family, dismissed safety concerns by invoking family and community. "This is not a PG, it's our home," she said. The first-floor common room held a broken computer table pushed to one side and clothes strung across the hall. Coolers stood outside every bedroom, but with little ventilation the rooms felt humid rather than airy. One room for three, at Rs 8,500 per bed, had no study table; the manager pointed to the lower rent. The common washroom was open on one side, with only a cane partition standing between users and the view of neighbours. A question about the small wardrobe drew a remark about first-year students and their clothes, followed by laughter.

Across the PGs visited, priced from Rs 8,500 to Rs 38,000 a month for a bed, a pattern held: higher rent bought more space, privacy, cleaner washrooms, better furnishing, decent food, balconies, air conditioning, recreational areas, gyms, housekeeping, laundry and CCTV. But in every conversation, the pitch began with amenities. None of it was about how secure the building was. Higher rent did not automatically mean fire extinguishers, evacuation plans, structural certifications or publicly displayed no-objection certificates — and students looking for accommodation rarely ask about them.

For Eshani Bardhan, who moved from Siliguri in West Bengal to study Zoology at the University of Delhi, the priority was a well-lit room with windows she could open each morning. "I have grown up in a house where in the morning we never needed artificial light. Without natural light, it becomes quite depressing for me," she said. She arrived in Delhi on August 26 and toured several PGs — some congested, some resembling garages, others simply expensive, including one where rents ranged from Rs 30,000 to Rs 38,000. Living away from her family for the first time in a city known for crimes against women, she keeps her parents updated through her live location at all times. Fire safety and disaster preparedness, she admitted, never came up in any of her conversations. The Satya Niketan incident, she said, makes her question the safety of her own PG.