The rebuilding of the city must begin, after Satya Niketan

Why in the News

A building collapse at Satya Niketan in Delhi killed seven of the 50 Delhi University students living in a makeshift arrangement inside an unauthorised structure, with many others hospitalised in serious condition. The collapse followed monsoon water reaching the basement and foundations of a structure almost half a century old, in which alterations were being carried out at basement level at the time. Given the building’s age, its condition, its unauthorised status and its position in a dense neighbourhood, the event was not preventable at the moment it happened. The tension is that almost 60 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in structures of this kind, and the city will hold nearly 40 million people by 2030, so the response has to be a documentation and licensing regime rather than an inquiry into one building.

What is a Lal Dora area?

1. Lal Dora, the village habitation core: A Lal Dora area is the settled habitation core of a village that was recorded separately from its agricultural land, and which municipal planning and building regulation historically did not reach.
2. Shadow pockets outside municipal planning: These are shadow pockets that evade municipal planning, and they exist in virtually all large Indian cities rather than in Delhi alone.
3. High density construction in urbanised villages: Urbanised villages of this kind now carry high density four and five storey buildings put up outside the building bye laws that apply elsewhere in the city.

Why is the city’s building stock undocumented?

1. The scale of the unregulated stock: Almost 60 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in unauthorised structures, mostly slums, low rise makeshift tenements, or high density four and five storey buildings in urbanised villages.
2. Existing street maps of illegal colonies: Street maps of most illegal colonies already exist, so the gap is not location but the building itself.
3. The missing building by building record: There is no building by building documentation of the type and size of each structure, no assessment of its physical condition, and no enumeration of who lives inside it.
4. Infra red structural imaging: Advanced infra red and other imaging techniques allow a reasonably accurate assessment of a building’s structural condition without dismantling it.

Why does the age of the stock make documentation urgent?

1. Buildings are no longer built to last: The lifespan of structures built in this century is barely 30 to 40 years, against the generational life expected of older construction.
2. Non compliant buildings last less: Structures such as those at Satya Niketan follow none of the required safety codes, which shortens that span further.
3. A finite lifespan and the inspection cycle: A building stock with a known expiry has to be checked on a cycle, and partially or wholly demolished and replaced when it fails, rather than inspected only after a collapse.

Why does the use of a building matter as much as its construction?

1. A structure is designed for one function: Every building is engineered for a specific use, and inappropriate use with heavy loads on floors weakens and damages the structure.
2. Residential to commercial conversion: In unauthorised colonies, blocks of flats designed for domestic use are converted into stores and restaurants, which raises the number of occupants and alters the weight carried by the floors.
3. Makeshift student hostels: Makeshift hostels compress living space to raise the return to the property owner, which is the arrangement the Satya Niketan students were housed under.
4. Occupancy permit tied to a designated function: No occupancy permit should be issued unless the building authority has approved a designated function for the building and allocated a minimum floor space per person.

What does the layout of a colony do to the water?

1. Nobody owns the shared ground: Builders take no responsibility for the ground they share with neighbouring buildings, so no one assesses the plot as part of a layout.
2. Permeable ground and drain capacity: Whether there is adequate natural ground around a structure to absorb rainwater, and whether there are enough wide mouth drains to move water away quickly.
3. The mechanism of failure: Too much building in too small a ground area traps excess water, directs it into basements and foundations, and destabilises the structure from below.
4. Climate change and drainage capacity: Climate change is altering weather patterns, producing flash floods and sudden very large volumes of rain, so drainage capacity has become a structural safety question rather than a convenience one.

Why does enforcement fail even where rules exist?

1. The bye laws are not the binding constraint: A battery of building bye laws carries no value if it cannot be enforced, and the enforcement machinery is the part that has not been built.
2. Inspection is purchasable: Structural evaluation of buildings achieves nothing where inspectors and site engineers can be bribed to record a passing assessment.
3. The Bengaluru apartment collapse: A newly completed apartment building in Bengaluru collapsed after the builder added two floors beyond the three approved, weakening the structural capacity of the columns. The collapse killed 12 people.
4. Authority is split across agencies: Control of roads, buildings, transport and other infrastructure sits with different political parties and municipal agencies, which raises the question of whether all of it should be brought under one legal entity such as the mayor.

Challenges to regulating unauthorised construction in Delhi

1. Regularisation has become the expected endpoint: Repeated amnesty for unauthorised colonies teaches builders and residents that non compliance is a delay rather than a risk, so the next structure is also built outside the code. Eg. Delhi has run successive rounds of recognition and regularisation of unauthorised colonies over decades.
   The Fix: Tie any future regularisation to a passed structural assessment and a registered occupancy function, so recognition follows safety rather than substituting for it.
2. Enforcement is fragmented across agencies with no single accountable office: Land, building approval, drainage and services sit with separate bodies, so no one authority can be held responsible for a collapse. Eg. The proposal on the table is to bring roads, buildings, transport and infrastructure under one legal entity such as the mayor.
   The Fix: Vest building safety, drainage and occupancy licensing in one municipal office with statutory liability for a structural failure in its jurisdiction.
3. The inspector’s incentive runs against the resident’s safety: A single site engineer signs off on a structure whose owner gains directly from an extra floor, and detection is unlikely. Eg. A Bengaluru apartment approved for three storeys was completed with five and collapsed, killing 12 people.
   The Fix: Move structural certification to empanelled third party engineers who are randomly assigned to sites and carry personal liability for their certificate.
4. A hostel or a paying guest establishment sits outside the licensing net entirely: Converting a residential flat to shared student accommodation multiplies occupancy without triggering any approval. Eg. Fifty students were living in a makeshift arrangement inside one unauthorised Satya Niketan building.
   The Fix: Require a separate occupancy licence keyed to persons per unit for any shared residential use, renewable annually against a fire and structural check.
5. Drainage capacity is planned at city scale while the failure happens at plot scale: Storm water design covers arterial drains, and the ground condition immediately around a building is nobody’s design responsibility. Eg. Water reaching a basement and foundation is what destabilised an almost fifty year old structure.
   The Fix: Make a layout level permeable ground and drainage assessment a condition of building approval, so the plot’s water behaviour is fixed before construction rather than after flooding.
6. Demolition is politically impossible at the scale the stock requires: Sixty per cent of the population cannot be displaced, so unsafe structures stay occupied while the enforcement file remains open. Eg. Delhi will approach 40 million people by 2030, with continued in migration from nearby towns.
   The Fix: Pair every condemnation order with an in situ rental rehousing entitlement, so removing an unsafe structure does not require removing the household from the city.

Conclusion

The city’s governing problem is not that its bye laws are wrong but that most of its building stock sits outside any record that a bye law could be applied to. Documentation, a licensed function with a stated occupancy, a plot level drainage assessment and a single accountable authority are four separate instruments, and none of them requires a new law before it can begin. Delhi is heading towards nearly 40 million residents and the stock it will house them in has a working life measured in decades, not generations. The thing to watch is whether any municipal agency begins building by building documentation of a single Lal Dora pocket, since every other measure depends on that record existing first.

Urban Local Bodies in India

1. Urban local bodies: Urban local bodies (ULBs) are the elected municipal governments of Indian cities and towns, governed by Part IX-A of the Constitution as introduced by the 74th Amendment Act, 1992.
2. Municipal planning and service functions: They prepare master plans, regulate land use, provide basic services and guide urban growth, with reserved seats for women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes built into their composition.
3. Own revenue and property tax collection: Own revenue of Indian ULBs is under 1 per cent of GDP, against 6 per cent to 7 per cent in Brazil and South Africa, and property tax collection efficiency stays at 35 per cent to 40 per cent.
4. The planning deficit: About 65 per cent of Indian cities operate without an updated master plan, per NITI Aayog.

Government Initiatives for Urban Local Bodies

1. AMRUT 2.0: Targets 100 per cent water tap coverage in all 4,800 and more ULBs and 100 per cent sewerage coverage in 500 major cities, with mandatory rejuvenation of at least one water body in every city.
2. Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0: Works to a Garbage Free City star rating, requires material recovery facilities in cities above five lakh population, and targets remediation of all 2,400 and more legacy dumpsites by 2027.
3. Urban Challenge Fund: Rs 1,00,000 crore of central assistance aimed at catalysing Rs 4 lakh crore of investment, with the Centre funding 25 per cent of a project only where the ULB raises 50 per cent from the market.
4. Urban Infrastructure Development Fund: Managed by the National Housing Bank, it lends to Tier 2 and Tier 3 ULBs at low interest for water supply, sanitation and storm water drainage.
5. City Economic Regions: A Budget 2026-27 framework linking a core city with its satellite towns and industrial hubs into one labour market, with Rs 5,000 crore per region for 14 identified regions.
6. Smart Cities Mission legacy: The mission concluded on 31 March 2025, and its Integrated Command and Control Centres now operate in all 100 cities as traffic and emergency monitoring hubs.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2023, GS2, 10 marks] “The states in India seem reluctant to empower urban local bodies both functionally as well as financially.” Comment.”