Vertical campuses to residential schools: Inside Delhi’s new education blueprint

The Bill was to be introduced during the Delhi assembly monsoon session, but did not come up for discussion.

Keeping the city’s geographical limitations and limited land availability in mind, the government had said the Bill will “enable the development of modern, multi-storey urban campuses suited to a land-constrained metropolis like Delhi”.

It had also allowed international institutions and their off-campus centres to set up campuses in the city.

One fourth of the seats in all private universities are proposed to be reserved for Delhi students.

Changes in Master Plan

MPD-2047 has proposed a series of changes.

-The plan, for the first time, permits residential schools to operate in the city.

-Another major change is the removal of height restrictions on schools and universities and permitting more dense construction, which will allow them to either build larger floors or more floors.

For instance, in case of schools with classes up to XII standard, the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) has been loosened up to 180, which was 150 in the MPD-2021.

This means that if a school is built on the minimum required plot size of 4,000 square metres and uses the maximum ground coverage allowed of 40%, then it can build 4.5 floors.

If it uses only 20% of the ground coverage, it can build up to 9 floors.

Since height restrictions have been removed, if the school uses even less ground coverage, it can go even higher.

As per the plan, schools have to use at least 15% of the FAR for developing infrastructure for extra-curricular activities as applicable under the National Education Policy.

-For universities, while the FAR remains the same, height restrictions have been removed, which will pave the way for vertical campuses described in the Delhi private universities bill.

-The plan also permits coaching and vocational centres to function from schools, after school hours.

“This has come after we pushed for it, so that students don’t have to take coaching in narrow streets where there can be fire hazards,” Education Minister Ashish Sood told The Indian Express.

Narela education hub gets bigger

MPD-2047 also allocates 340 acres in Narela for an education hub where private and public universities can be set up. This is an increase of over 180 acres from the existing 160 acres earlier proposed for the hub.

“The plan also makes changes which will make it easier for private universities to acquire large parcels of land, if required, in the education hub,” Sood said, adding that through these changes, the government is attempting to prevent Delhi’s education industry from going out of Delhi.

In January, the Delhi Teachers University and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University were given possession letters for land parcels in Narela Education City measuring roughly 12 acres and 22 acres respectively.

Before that, Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women (IGDTUW) was also allotted 50 acres in the area.

The plan also positions roughly 150 square km of land on the border of Delhi as an institutional area under the Low Density Area (LDA) category.

Schools, colleges, universities, research institutes and coaching centres can come up in this area. They have been granted a FAR of 120, higher than other land uses of residential or commercial, essentially incentivising them to come up here.