SP 73: 2023 Standardized Development and Building Regulations, 2023
| ICS 01.120; 91.040.01 | CED 46 |
FOREWORD
This Special Publication, SP 73 : 2023 ‘Standardized Development and Building Regulations, 2023’ contains standardized regulations that lay down a set of minimum provisions to ensure safety in built environment, aligned to the provisions of the National Building Code of India 2016 (NBC 2016) as well as leading practices from India and abroad. The document is a model document that intends to bring forth uniformity in structuring, detailing as well as key approval processes throughout the country, without sacrificing any unique/area specific need of the various states and union territories (UTs), and within their concerned local bodies.
The key beneficiaries of this document are the following:
a) Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and Town and Country Planning Organization (TCPO) under MoHUA;
b) State and Union Territory Governments;
c) Local Bodies (LBs), both urban and rural;
d) Development Authorities (DAs);
e) Cantonment Boards and Port Trusts;
f) Zila and Gram Panchayats; and
g) Other organizations involved in the development of built environment.
The objective of this document is to improve regulatory mechanisms governing building construction, aligning these to various best practices and provisions existing in NBC 2016 to ensure better, time bound and transparent services to people and help create faster, better, more durable, resilient, accessible and sustainable buildings and built environment, generally improving ease of doing business in the field of construction.
Aim is also to bring about commonality, where possible, in rules/regulations/acts being followed by various regulatory bodies and to align these regulations to latest developments in the building industry to ensure that the regulatory bodies become more transparent, efficient and people are able to access services of registered building professionals. As there will be sufficient commonality in rules and regulations across the country, this will help in ease of doing business in various geographic areas. Another objective is to suggest how various regulatory bodies can integrate collection of verifiable data through these common rules and regulations, and how Information Technology can be leveraged to assist these bodies.
Preparation of this document involved a comprehensive study of existing regulatory/statutory mechanisms, rules and regulations governing land development and building construction in the country, mapping these to the provisions available in NBC 2016 and other best practices in India and abroad, and specifying improved standards which can be adopted by regulatory/statutory bodies to ensure better regulations to create safe and more sustainable, efficient and accessible buildings and built environment. Further, the exercise also included dissemination of the outcome to various statutory/regulatory bodies of all states and UTs through twenty (20) two-day workshops and focussed discussions at various locations across the country. Also, more than five hundred suggestions received during the series of workshops as well as through written communications, have been suitably addressed in the document. This document is intended to be a dynamic document which would be amended/revised as and when required.
To ensure that the document is easy to understand, adopt/adapt, implement and comply with, a number of measures have been undertaken while drafting it, some of which are given below:
i) The structuring of the chapters and the document as a whole has been done in the order of the development process for the most part. This makes the document a cogent continuous volume.
ii) Explanatory notes have been outlined at the beginning of each chapter to brief the users about the contents therein, in the form of major highlights.
iii) To enable easy navigation through the document and easy identification of the regulations, the items, clauses, sub-clauses, tables, figures, annexes, etc have been duly numbered in a standardized manner.
iv) The regulations have been supported with figures and flowcharts wherever necessary, to enhance their interpretation visually.
v) The regulations are so written as to ensure that there is no room for multiple interpretations, and effort has been made to frame the regulations in a manner that it is unambiguous.
vi) Wherever there is a possibility of an ambiguity arising in the interpretation of a clause or an exception occurring to the rule, notes have been inserted to clarify the same.
vii) The regulations are so written as to ensure easy translation of the document to other languages, as well as help in designing various forms/checklists for administering the land development and building activity.
viii) Key provisions of NBC 2016 related to safety, sustainability and accessibility have been specifically incorporated for ensuring ease of implementation.
ix) Latest developments and advancements in the field of land development and building contruction have also been addressed considering available guidelines and regulations.
There are certain provisions which may not be universally applicable to all cities and towns such as those relating to hilly areas, coastal areas, etc. The states and UTs have been informed of the same and have been requested to adopt the document with minimal changes to suit their local conditions and only delete such text which are not applicable to them without altering the numbering of the chapters/clauses. For this, it has been suggested to them that the deleted text may be replaced by ‘[Intentionally deleted]’.
Users of this standardized regulations are informed that this document makes reference to NBC 2016 and various other Indian Standards. NBC 2016 in turn refers to several other Indian Standards. Users are adviced to refer to the latest versions of these codes and standards as amended from time to time. These codes and standards can be accessed from the link given below. Indigenous Indian Standards can be downloaded and used free of cost.
https://standardsbis.bsbedge.com/
This document has been prepared with the support of a team of consultants guided by Shri Rajpal Kaushik in the capacity of an expert advisor. The entire exercise was monitored by the Project Monitoring Committee and Technical Advisory Committee of BIS, and the document was finalized by the National Building Code Sectional Committee, CED 46 of BIS as a Special Publication.