The Delhi government will soon launch an online portal to map student paying guest accommodations across the city, bringing locations, room capacity and basic amenities into a formal database for the first time under a proposed regulatory framework.
The decision was taken at the second meeting of the High-Powered Committee on Student Accommodation and Safety, chaired by Education Minister Ashish Sood on Thursday. The committee was constituted following the Satya Niketan incident to examine regulations for student paying guest accommodations and hostels in Delhi.
The portal will initially collect basic information about student housing, including the location of each accommodation, the number of rooms and the amenities available. Delhi University and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi will conduct a dry run within two to four days, after which the government plans to begin a campaign encouraging students to register their accommodation details.
“Progress was made on creating a portal to capture data on students and paying guest accommodations. We will be launching the portal very soon so that it is known where children are living in Delhi and in what kind of accommodation, enabling us to regulate them,” Sood said after the meeting.
The proposed database is intended to address the fragmented nature of Delhi’s student housing market. Many students live in privately operated PGs, hostels or converted residential premises located near educational institutions, but the meeting indicated that the government currently needs a more systematic way to identify these accommodations and assess their conditions.
The committee also decided to form a sub-committee comprising representatives of the Delhi Development Authority, the Delhi government, the MCD and the Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University. It will examine whether existing provisions under the Master Plan and the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act can be relaxed to facilitate legally operated PG housing.
The sub-committee will specifically study the possibility of permitting regulated PG accommodations within a five- to six-kilometre radius of major educational hubs. It will also examine whether such housing can be allowed in group housing societies and areas governed by resident welfare associations, where existing planning and land-use provisions may restrict these operations.
“Where issues are arising in legal operations due to restrictions in the Master Plan and DMC Act, a sub-committee will sit to study that,” Sood said.
As part of the immediate exercise, the MCD and the DDA will inspect 100 PG accommodations within three days. The inspections are expected to provide information for the regulations currently being drafted for student housing in Delhi.
The proposed norms include closed-circuit television cameras in common areas and at entrances. The source report did not specify the full list of proposed safety, fire, occupancy or operational requirements, which are expected to be detailed in the comprehensive regulations.
The government’s next steps are the portal’s dry run by Delhi University and the MCD, followed by the student registration campaign and inspections of the first 100 PG accommodations. The sub-committee will separately examine the planning and municipal provisions affecting the legal operation of student housing.
