Building regulations for hill towns of India

Abstract

Pressure for development on preferred locations in the Himalayan regions has increased during the last few decades due to urbanisation, population increase, and high influx of tourists. These preferred locations are converted into hill towns, making them preferred tourist destinations and the main economic activity generators of the hill regions of India. As a consequence of these factors, during the last three decades development activities have tremendously increased in these seismically vulnerable and environmentally sensitive hill towns. This unprecedented development has resulted in deterioration of living conditions, and environmental and visual quality in hill towns. Building regulations are enforced in hill towns to control/regulate the ever-increasing demand for development in hill towns but, as evident from the existing conditions, hill towns are experiencing numerous problems and concerns due to inappropriate and non contextual urban development buildings, thus highlighting inappropriateness of existing building regulations in the context of hill towns.This paper discusses existing development scenario and issues to accommodate future development in hill towns located in Indian Himalayan region, also highlights the state of existing building regulations through an in-depth study of building regulations in major hill towns, and briefly discuses possible approaches to change existing building regulations for achieving contextually appropriate development.