Safety in Delhi needs a regulatory reset

Why in the News

A building collapse in Satya Niketan has reopened the question of who is answerable for building safety in Delhi. Comparable failures have occurred at Saidulajab, Hauz Rani, Tughlakabad Extension, Palam and Vivek Vihar. Delhi already runs an online single window system for building proposals, built on Automated Development Control Regulations (Auto DCR) software, and that system reached none of these structures. The contest is between a regulator that examines the plans submitted to it and a city where the dangerous construction is precisely the construction that submits no plan.

How does Delhi’s single window building approval system work?

1. Online filing and document verification: Building proposals are submitted online. The Auto DCR software and the Building Plan Approval Management System verify the mandatory documents.
2. Fee and site visit: The system issues a scrutiny fee challan for online payment. It then sends an SMS to the building inspector and the architect carrying the details of the site visit.
3. Automated reading of the drawing: Auto DCR creates entities such as plots, building layouts and roads from the submitted drawings, using layers, geometrical mapping and reports.
4. Rule checking and status: AutoCAD and allied software analyse the plans against the development control regulations and the building bye-laws, and the compliance status is available online before the plans are examined for approval.

Which laws does illegal construction breach?

1. Planning and municipal law: Illegal construction violates the Master Plan for Delhi, the Unified Building Byelaws, the Delhi Development Act and the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957.
2. Fire law: It also violates the Delhi Fire Service Act, 2007, which is the source of the fire safety clearance a building is required to hold.
3. The city absorbs the cost: Unapproved construction adds load to transport, services and civic amenities that were planned for a lower density.
4. The failures are recurrent: Frequent fire incidents and structural failures in illegal constructions have endangered lives.

Why is Delhi’s exposure larger than the collapses suggest?

1. Seismic exposure: Delhi falls in Seismic Zone IV, where earthquakes may be severe, so unengineered construction carries a citywide risk rather than a single owner’s risk.
2. Two cities with one problem: Planned development coexists with informal growth in slums and unauthorised colonies. Both are plagued by building violations along with a lack of oversight and enforcement.
3. Safety is not conditional on tenure: The city cannot afford unsafe buildings irrespective of the type of development, the land ownership or the land use.

Why has repeated official attention changed so little?

1. The findings already exist: Courts, the commissions headed by G T Nanavati and by Baleshwar Prasad, and the high level committee headed by Tejendra Khanna have all underlined building safety, with very little impact.
2. Monitoring is the weak link: Haphazard development and weak monitoring systems produce inefficiencies, delays and a loss of accountability.
3. Non-compliance carries no standing consequence: Every building without a structural and fire safety certificate should be sealed and should display a safety related warning, and no such automatic consequence operates today.

Why does approving plans not produce safe buildings?

1. The department sees only what is filed: Building departments mainly deal with the plans they receive, so massive illegal and risky constructions are left out of the process altogether.
2. The digital reform did not widen the net: The single window system improved the handling of submitted proposals. It brought no unauthorised construction into any approval or inspection stream, which is why the reform has not been successful.
3. The software trails the city it regulates: The system needs updating to handle redevelopment, green buildings, transit oriented development and approvals under mixed land use.

What would demunicipalising building regulation mean?

1. Separating the regulator from the political apparatus: The proposal is to make the regulatory function for buildings independent of the municipal and political structure that currently houses it.
2. One structure performs two conflicting roles: The same municipal apparatus both sanctions construction and polices it, so enforcement competes with local political interest.
3. Bringing in the settlements now left out: Radical reform is required so that structures in informal settlements, urban villages and resettlement colonies receive regulatory attention.

What can technology detect that inspection does not?

1. Remote detection of new construction: Geospatial artificial intelligence, using high resolution satellite imagery and LiDAR (laser based remote sensing that measures distances to build a three dimensional model of a surface), can monitor and detect unauthorised construction.
2. Continuous tracking in place of periodic visits: Spatial data driven Real-Time Morphological Tracking can change how building and layout plans are approved, and improve compliance with the building bye-laws, the Fire Services Act and land use stipulations.
3. Less discretion, less rent: Automated detection reduces the human interface in approval and enforcement, and reduces the corruption that discretion creates.

Challenges to an independent building regulator for Delhi

1. Authority over building control is already split: Sanction and enforcement are divided among the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the New Delhi Municipal Council, the Delhi Development Authority and the Delhi Cantonment Board, so a new regulator adds a layer unless it absorbs theirs. Eg. The Delhi Development Authority prepares the Master Plan, and the municipal bodies sanction individual building plans under it.
   The Fix: Vest building safety certification in one statutory authority for the whole National Capital Territory, with the municipal bodies acting as its field arms.
2. Unauthorised construction carries statutory protection: Punitive action against unauthorised colonies has repeatedly been suspended by law, so a regulator inherits a built stock it cannot act against. Eg. Successive National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Acts have protected specified categories of unauthorised construction from demolition and sealing.
   The Fix: Convert that protection into a time bound retrofitting and certification requirement, so regularisation buys structural safety rather than immunity alone.
3. Detection is not structural assessment: Satellite imagery and LiDAR identify a new or altered footprint, and they cannot read load bearing capacity, foundation integrity or the quality of materials. Eg. A failure triggered by excavation under an existing building leaves no external signature beforehand.
   The Fix: Pair remote detection with a mandatory structural audit by empanelled engineers for every building above a defined height or age.
4. Certification capacity does not exist at that scale: Sealing every building without a structural and fire safety certificate presumes a supply of qualified structural engineers and fire auditors the city does not have. Eg. Fire safety clearance is required only above a prescribed building height, and even that stock is audited irregularly.
   The Fix: Licence and empanel private structural auditors under statutory personal liability, with random state verification of the certificates they issue.

Conclusion

Building regulation in Delhi is organised around a transaction, the filing of a plan, and the buildings that kill people are the ones that never generate that transaction. Better software and further audit requirements leave that structure untouched. The reform with any prospect of changing outcomes starts from the built stock rather than from the file, detects change on the ground, and carries the authority to act on what it finds without asking an elected municipal body first. Whether the proposal for a regulator of that kind moves past commentary is the thing to watch.

Urban Governance in India

1. Cities carry the economy: Cities house about 37 per cent of the population and generate close to 70 per cent of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
2. The urban share keeps rising: Urban India is projected to reach about 60 crore people, or 40 per cent of the population, by 2036.
3. Authority is fragmented by design: Municipal functions are split across urban local bodies, development authorities and parastatal agencies, so no single body answers for a city.
4. Cities raise almost nothing of their own: Urban local bodies raise under 0.6 per cent of GDP as own revenue, of which property tax accounts for about 0.15 per cent.

Constitutional Framework Governing Urban Governance

1. Part IXA, Articles 243P to 243ZG: Inserted by the Constitution (Seventy-fourth Amendment) Act, 1992, it gives municipalities constitutional status and fixes their composition, duration and elections.
2. Twelfth Schedule: Lists 18 functions a State may devolve to municipalities, including urban planning, regulation of land use and construction of buildings, and fire services.
3. Article 243W: Empowers State legislatures to confer powers and responsibilities on municipalities as institutions of self government and for the Twelfth Schedule functions.
4. Article 243Y: Requires the State Finance Commission to review municipal finances and recommend the sharing of State taxes with municipalities.

Laws and Rules Governing Urban Development

1. National Building Code of India, 2016: A model code issued by the Bureau of Indian Standards setting requirements for structural safety, fire and life safety and building services. States give it force through their own bye-laws.
2. Model Building Bye-Laws, 2016: A template issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for State and municipal bye-laws, covering sanction procedure, setbacks, parking and fire safety.
3. Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016: Requires registration of projects and agents with a State regulatory authority, and fixes promoter liability for structural defects for five years from possession.
4. Disaster Management Act, 2005: Provides the statutory basis for disaster management plans and for safety and retrofitting norms in hazard prone areas.

Challenges in Urban Governance

1. Devolution under the Seventy-fourth Amendment is incomplete: Many States have not transferred the listed functions or empowered mayors, so the body closest to a building is not the body that controls it. Eg. Urban planning and land use regulation sit with State owned development authorities in most large cities.
   The Fix: Complete activity mapping for the Twelfth Schedule functions and provide for directly elected mayors with a fixed tenure.
2. Municipal finances cannot fund enforcement: Weak own revenue leaves cities without the technical staff to inspect, audit or prosecute. Eg. Successive Finance Commissions have tied municipal grants to property tax reform and audited municipal accounts.
   The Fix: Shift property tax to capital value with periodic revision, and make audited accounts a condition for central mission funds.
3. Most urban land is not planned at all: Only about 30 per cent of urban land is properly planned, so the majority of growth happens outside any development control regime. Eg. Census towns cross the urban thresholds without having any urban local body.
   The Fix: Extend statutory planning coverage to census towns and peri urban areas before they are built out.
4. Urban disaster risk is outrunning municipal capacity: Flooding, fire and heat concentrate on the least regulated built stock and on the poorest occupants. Eg. The Disaster Management (Amendment) Act, 2025 provides for Urban Disaster Management Authorities in large cities.
   The Fix: Make the city disaster authority the owner of building safety audits, with the power to seal non compliant structures.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2023, GS2, 10.0 marks] “The states in India seem reluctant to empower urban local bodies both functionally as well as financially.” Comment.”