The recent fire at a Goa nightclub, which claimed 25 lives and left many others fighting for survival, was a tragedy waiting to happen. While it may be categorized as an “accident,” it was fuelled by systemic negligence. Both the establishment owners and regulatory officials were well aware of the lapsed safety compliance; the disaster wasn’t a matter of if, but when.
This has been a recurring news headline in our country: innocent lives sacrificed at the altar of bureaucratic
apathy. It raises a vital question: If patrons had known the club was a fire trap, would they have still walked
through those doors? Perhaps a few would take the calculated risk, but the majority would surely seek safety
elsewhere.
In this landscape of negligence, customer empowerment is cardinal. It is a bitter irony that the very people who fuel the economy and provide government revenue are kept in the dark regarding their own safety.
In an era of rapid digitalization, information asymmetry is inexcusable. We can and should implement automated systems where compliance status is disseminated via QR codes, free from human interference. We already see this in action on our roads: traffic officers can instantly verify a vehicle’s insurance or pollution certificate just by scanning a license plate. Recently, QR codes were also mandated for eateries along the Kanwar Yatra routes by the Uttar Pradesh government to display owner details, fostering transparency, hygiene, and consumer choice.
Why not apply this to public spaces? Every nightclub, hotel, cinema, or even government premises should be mandated to display a “Compliance QR Code” on their brochures, advertisements, and entrances. This code would link to an auto-generated checklist pulled directly from statutory databases – fire safety, health permits, and municipal licenses. If the QR code isn’t visible, or if the “digital light” is red, the customer knows to walk away.
To make live compliance data more democratic, the agencies could share it with the Open Data platform of
Government of India. By accessing the information from the database, the industry, digital activists, and academia could develop the mobile apps to further empower the customers.
By empowering the public with real-time data, we shift the information sharing towards its actual users instead of keeping it with the people who are actually supposed to take action on the information. It will also trigger public pressure on the owners of premises as well as on the regulatory authorities to comply with the safety measures in a time-bound manner. If a business fails to renew or even does not get a venue’s license, the informed customer becomes aware of it. At the very least, if the customer chooses to enter, they do so with their eyes wide open to the risks.
About the Author:
Santulan Chaubey is a former Joint Director, Government of NCT of Delhi, and a research scholar at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi. The views presented in this article are personal.