The Delhi government will launch an online portal to map student PG accommodations across the city, bringing a fragmented housing sector under a formal regulatory framework after the Satya Niketan incident raised concerns about student safety and oversight.
The decision was taken at the second meeting of the High-Powered Committee on Student Accommodation and Safety, chaired by Education Minister Ashish Sood. The committee was constituted to frame regulations for paying guest accommodations and hostels in Delhi.
The portal will initially collect basic information about student accommodation, including its location, number of rooms and available amenities. The University of Delhi 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.
“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 system is intended to address the lack of consolidated information on where students live and the conditions in which they are accommodated. The government has not yet announced the final registration process, the full set of compliance requirements or the penalties that may apply to operators who fail to register.
The committee also decided to form a sub-committee with representatives from 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 enable legal PG operations.
The review will consider allowing regulated PG housing within a 5–6 km radius of major educational hubs, as well as in group housing societies and areas managed by resident welfare associations. The move could affect neighbourhoods around Delhi’s major colleges and universities, where student accommodation operates alongside established residential uses.
The sub-committee’s task reflects an administrative problem at the centre of the city’s student housing market: accommodation demand is concentrated near educational institutions, while existing planning and municipal provisions may not clearly accommodate the PG model. The government has not specified which rules may be changed or how resident welfare associations and local communities would be involved in the process.
The MCD and the DDA will inspect 100 PG accommodations within three days. The inspections are expected to provide an initial assessment of the conditions and facilities available in student housing across the city.
Proposed safety norms include CCTV cameras in common areas and at entrances. Comprehensive regulations for student housing are still being drafted, and the government has not announced a final timeline for their approval or implementation. The immediate next steps are the portal’s dry run, the inspection of 100 PGs and the subsequent student-registration campaign.
