PG accommodations need strict regulation

The murder in Koramangala should serve as a wake-up call.

The murder of a young woman at a paying guest (PG) accommodation in Bengaluru’s Koramangala area has raised several questions about their security and the absence of a regulatory mechanism to monitor them. The fact that the assailant could gain entry to this exclusive women’s accommodation and proceed unobstructed to the third-floor room of the victim speaks volumes of how unsafe these facilities are for women. It is estimated that Bengaluru has about 20,000 PG accommodations, but not even a fourth of them have obtained the mandatory trade licences from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

Recently, the Bengaluru police issued a set of guidelines which laid down that no PG accommodation could be run without obtaining a licence. The establishments are also required to collect the identity cards and recent photographs of inmates, and details and mobile numbers of blood relatives. The owners must comply with the Karnataka Public Safety Act, 2017, by installing CCTV cameras and implementing measures to address fire hazards. The guidelines also stipulate that staff, including cooks and security guards, should be recruited only after police verification. The PG accommodations, while restricting illegal activities such as consumption and storage of drugs, should display the phone numbers of emergency services prominently, besides making first aid kits available. But these norms remain mostly on paper. In the absence of proper guidelines, PG accommodations have also turned out to be a strain on municipal infrastructure. Overcrowding is common, and in many cases, over 30 inmates are accommodated in a single dwelling unit built on a small plot of land. This naturally adds pressure on the supply of drinking water and collection of garbage. What is worse, since most of the PG accommodations have not obtained trade licences, they pay for drinking water and other facilities at domestic, not commercial, rates. Many PG accommodations are also run in illegally constructed buildings.

PG accommodations, no doubt, have come as a boon to thousands of people, especially students and young professionals who cannot afford the high rents in Bengaluru. But there is also a need to regulate them by evolving a comprehensive set of guidelines which will ensure that they not only pay commercial rates for the municipal services availed, but also provide safety and security for their residents. The BBMP should immediately crack down on both, illegal PG accommodations which are functioning without licences and the legal ones which do not follow the norms. Many owners of PG accommodations have become a law unto themselves, and it is high time they are reined in.