The Delhi government has begun work on a centralised portal to record student accommodation and a new regulatory framework for paying guest facilities after the Satya Niketan building collapse that killed seven people, including five Delhi University students, on September 6.
The decisions were taken at a meeting of a high-powered committee chaired by Delhi Education Minister Ashish Sood on Thursday. The committee has also formed a sub-committee to examine whether rules can be relaxed to allow authorised PG facilities in group housing societies, residential welfare association areas and neighbourhoods around major educational hubs.
Officials said the portal will initially collect basic information such as the number of rooms and available amenities. “The portal will remain simple during its initial rollout to collect essential details such as room counts and basic amenities without causing panic among operators,” the officials said.
Initial testing and a dry run are expected to be completed within four days, after which the government will begin a campaign encouraging students to register their accommodation. The portal is intended to help authorities identify where students are living and bring PG facilities within a formal monitoring system.
The proposed sub-committee will include officials from the Delhi Development Authority, the Delhi government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, along with the Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University. It will examine possible changes to the Master Plan for Delhi-2047 and the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957.
The government is considering whether regulatory relaxations could be permitted within a 5-6 km radius of major educational hubs. The stated objective is to enable legal PG operations while improving safety and affordability. The review is significant for student areas such as Satya Niketan, Mukherjee Nagar and Ber Sarai, where the supply of official university hostels is inadequate and many students depend on private accommodation in residential neighbourhoods.
Urban planners cited in the report said existing land-use provisions can make legal operation of multi-tenant boarding facilities difficult in residential areas. This has contributed to the growth of PG accommodation outside a clearly regulated framework. The proposed review will therefore examine both the legality of such operations and the safety conditions in buildings housing students.
“We will soon bring PG regulations and laws to streamline this system,” Sood said. He added that the government would launch the portal to establish where students were living and regulate the facilities. He also said the sub-committee would study cases where restrictions in the Master Plan and the DMC Act were preventing legal operations.
The regulatory draft for the proposed Paying Guest Accommodation Regulation and Safety Bill, 2026 is expected to be finalised within two weeks. The high-powered committee will reconvene after October 20 to review progress.
The meeting also recommended stronger surveillance requirements for PG facilities. A statement from Sood’s office said future regulations should require CCTV coverage at entry points, exit points and common areas, with recording backups retained for 40-45 days. It specified that personal spaces should remain outside surveillance coverage.
Meanwhile, the MCD and the DDA are conducting joint on-ground inspections of around 100 PG facilities to examine safety standards and legal compliance. The government’s next formal milestones are the completion of the portal’s dry run, the proposed student registration campaign and the finalisation of the draft regulation bill.
