Inadequacies in the planned development of Delhi over the last six decades came to fore on Tuesday at a stakeholders’ conference organised by Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) on the subject of simplification of Delhi building bylaws.
Participants at the meet, including architects, engineers, real estate representatives, urban planners, representatives of housing societies, development agencies and experts, highlighted the haphazard development of the national Capital in the time since the enactment of the Delhi Development Act in 1957. According to a senior Urban Development official, issues pertaining to building bylaws were raised at the meeting.
Urban Development Secretary Shankar Aggarwal said that bylaws are being simplified keeping in view the problems being faced in realising the objectives of the Master Plan of Delhi and to meet, among others, the growing demand for housing in the city. Talking about growing chaos on various fronts despite the 1957 Act, Delhi Development Authority vice chairman Balwinder Kumar noted that the only two major achievements in the city were the increase in its green cover to over 87,000 acres and the protection of the lutyens’ Zone.
Speaking during the conference, the DUAC chairman PSN Rao said that simplification of bylaws is undertaken to make them contemporary and user-friendly. The participants strongly urged that the bylaws should enable the construction of highrises in the national Capital in view of the scarcity of land.
The Master Plan Delhi-2021 provides for redevelopment, but no such activity has been allowed in the last seven years, they pointed out. Redevelopment can meet the needs of an expanding national Capital by up to 40 per cent, they said. The participants also called for specific time frames for approval of layout and building plans and increase in floor area ratio (FAR) norms. They further said that circulation areas should not be considered a part of FAR and called for avoidance of duplication in approvals, like not requiring approvals for expansion when layout plan was cleared.
Suggestions were also made for allowing multi-level parking without taking such areas as part of FAR, online approvals, ensuring structural safety, seismic planning norms, providing bylaws for commercial establishments, removal of discretions, furnishing of mandatory quality certificate by the builder, etc. DUAC has formulated simplified draft bylaws with the intention of making them user-friendly and enabling single window clearances.