Kolkata hospital disasters: Design failures, Building Code lapses, and the Crime–Fire Link

Madhumita Roy

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i05.88852

Kolkata hospital disasters: Design failures, Building Code lapses, and the Crime–Fire Link

Author(s)	Prof. Madhumita Roy
Country	India
Abstract	Hospitals and similar public buildings are crowded. Storage spaces for toxic and flammable substances are places of acute stressors. The risk of a hospital is high when the design, approval and day-to-day management are not in accordance with the National Building Code (NBC) of India and state rules like West Bengal Municipal (building)Rules. Obstructing exits, blocking hallways, leaving basement doors unguarded, and failing to protect the wards allow fires and violent crimes to happen and escalate. This study presents two selected incidents to investigate the situation regarding these risks in a private hospital and in a Kolkata public hospital. The first incident is the 2011 AMRI Hospital fire, where 89 to 93 people died as a result of the illegal stocking of flammable materials in the parking basement. The second incident relates to the rape and murder of a trainee postgraduate doctor at R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital,2024. The Management of R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital did not enforce proper access control and had weak CCTV coverage. The conclusion of the research about the hospitals’ space in Kolkata states that hospitals’ land area and bed capacity do not conform to the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS), while corridors and exits conform with NBC. This article compares the camps of the Kolkata government medical college with two well-functioning examples: the Tata Medical Center, Kolkata, and AIIMS, New Delhi. According to the IPHS standard and those two examples, a prestigious government medical college of Kolkata has much less land per bed. Overcrowding, low doctor-population ratio, change-in-use of internal spaces and inadequate spending on security and fire safety in the government hospitals of West Bengal have largely caused the current outbreak. The study deals with the legislative framework governing hospitals, the mismatch between regulations and their implementation and ends with some policy suggestions relating to hospital design, campus planning, legal compliance and accountability
Keywords	Hospital design, NBCS, Kolkata, R.G.Kar Medical College, AMRI Hospital, Fire
Field	Engineering
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 5, September-October 2026
Published On	2026-10-01
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i05.88852

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Kolkata hospital disasters: Design failures, Building Code lapses, and the Crime–Fire Link

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