National Building Standards to replace Code by April; Experts raise concerns over fire safety matters

NEW DELHI: The National Building Code (NBC) will be replaced by a National Building Standard (NBS) by April-end, giving states and municipal bodies rights over matters such as development control norms, fire safety and administration. This would be done as land and buildings fall under their jurisdiction.

The Cabinet Secretariat has directed the Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) to complete the task.

Experts, who have been involved in the preparation of the latest NBC draft, said matters related to fire safety should be part of the proposed standard and not be tweaked, considering the safety of occupants and people at large. However, they said, changes to some parts of the existing Code are possible, till the NBS is published.

People aware of the development said the deregulation cell under Cabinet Secretariat has asked BIS to make “hand books” for some parts of the NBC, including the chapter dealing with fire safety, which states can refer to as best practices.

“NBC is voluntary in nature, and hence, we feel that the Code can exist, and states can tweak them. It’s important to retain parts relating to fire safety. We must realise that fire safety engineering is largely missing in our country and if we don’t have a national standard, it’s impact will be visible considering that we lack robust fire safety infrastructure,” said Srinivas Valluri, national president of Fire and Security Association of India (FSAI), who has been a member of the technical committee for NBC of 2016 and 2025.

Corroborating this, another member of the technical committee, U S Chhillar said, the national standard can help guide states and municipal bodies which otherwise have less capacity on such matters. “We (technical committee) want to inform the govt about the need for these standards. But govt wants us to simply change the sections as per their instructions,” said Chhillar, director general of the Institution of Fire Engineers.

Recently, the Cabinet Secretariat had intervened to withdraw the revised 2025 BIS seismic zoning map standard after the housing and urban affairs ministry flagged increase in cost of Metro Rail projects, technical complexity and lack of stakeholder consultation. There was a directive to BIS to “immediately” withdraw the draft standards, TOI has learnt.

People aware about the developments said that the updation of NBC was done after more than two years’ work and just when it was about to be published, the Cabinet Secretariat in June last year wrote to all states, saying that it is not mandatory to follow NBC. This was followed by directives to BIS to make it only a standard document and tweak provisions.

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