FROM CODE TO STANDARD
- DRASInt® Risk Alliance
- May 2
- 15 min read
Evaluating Transition from the National Building Code to the National Building Standard
A Policy & Legal Analysis | May 2026 India's transition from the National Building Code (NBC) to a proposed National Building Standard (NBS) marks a significant shift in regulatory philosophy, from centralised model codes to decentralised, advisory standards. While the reform aligns with India's federal governance structure and aims to improve ease of doing business, it raises serious concerns about safety uniformity, particularly because fire safety provisions are being reclassified from their de facto mandatory status (achieved through state bylaw adoption of NBC Part 4) to purely advisory guidance.
List of Abbreviations
Abbreviation | Full Form |
ACP | Aluminium Composite Panel |
ADSI | Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (NCRB annual report series) |
BIM | Building Information Modelling |
BIS | Bureau of Indian Standards |
BMS | Building Management System |
CED | Civil Engineering Department (BIS Sectional Committee code) |
DAS | Distributed Antenna System |
DGFS | Directorate General of Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards |
FPLS | Fire Prevention and Life Safety |
HVAC | Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning |
ICT | Information and Communication Technology |
IS | Indian Standard (a document published by BIS) |
IS/ISO 7240 | Indian Standard / International Organization for Standardization, Fire detection and alarm systems series |
IBC | International Building Code (United States) |
MoHUA | Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, GoI |
NBC | National Building Code of India |
NBS | National Building Standard (proposed replacement for the NBC) |
NCRB | National Crime Records Bureau |
NFPA | National Fire Protection Association (United States) |
NOC | No Objection Certificate |
RBP | Registered Building Professional |
RCC | Reinforced Cement Concrete |
SDOC | Self Declaration of Conformity |
1. Introduction
The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), established under the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016 (No. 11 of 2016), is India's national standards body responsible for the formulation, promotion and maintenance of technical standards across sectors. Among its most consequential publications is the National Building Code (NBC) of India, a regulatory framework governing the planning, design, construction, maintenance and services of buildings throughout the country.
Although the NBC is formally a recommendatory document, it acquires binding legal force once state governments and local bodies incorporate its provisions into their building bylaws and Fire Service Acts. For over five decades the NBC served as the practical backbone of India's construction governance. Its most recent edition, NBC 2016, expanded provisions on fire and life safety (Part 4), structural safety referencing Indian Standard IS 1893, green building requirements and building services. Through advisories from the MHA, specifically the Directorate General of Fire Services (DGFS) advisory of 18 April 2017, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), states were consistently encouraged to translate NBC provisions into enforceable local instruments.
2. Replacing the NBC
The GoI has now initiated a paradigm shift, replacing the NBC with a National Building Standard (NBS). This new framework is described as nonbinding and principle based, granting states expanded regulatory autonomy. The most consequential and contested element of this transition is the reclassification of fire safety provisions, previously embedded in NBC Part 4 and actively promoted as enforceable through state bylaw adoption, to advisory guidance status.
3. The National Building Code
3.1 Nature and Scope
The NBC provides minimum standards to ensure structural safety, fire protection, public health and accessibility across all building types. Developed and published by BIS, it serves as a Model Code for adoption by public works departments, government construction agencies, local bodies and private developers. It covers the built environment, from foundation engineering and structural design to plumbing, Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC), fire escape architecture and facility management.
The NBC does not independently carry the force of law, its enforceability is entirely derived from state level adoption. This has been a consistent feature since the code's first publication in 1970 and is the key institutional background against which the NBS reform must be assessed.
3.2 Fire Safety as a Core Component
NBC Part 4, Fire and Life Safety, is the most technically detailed section of the code. As reproduced in the MoHUA Model Building Byelaws 2016 (Chapter 7), it covers:-
Automatic fire alarm systems for all buildings 15 meters and above in height (Section 7.24 of the Model Building Byelaws).
Wet riser, down comer, hose reel and automatic sprinkler systems scaled to building height and occupancy (Sections 7.20–7.22).
Fire lifts, pressurized staircases, smoke extraction and emergency lighting requirements (Sections 7.10–7.15).
A Control Room, manned round the clock, with Public Address System and floor by floor fire detection indicators (Section 7.25).
Standby diesel generators covering fire pumps, lifts, staircase lighting and pressurisation systems in the event of normal power failure (Section 7.18).
Restrictions on combustible and toxic materials for partitioning, wall panelling and false ceilings (Section 7.29).
Under Section 7.20 of the Model Building Byelaws, all firefighting equipment and installations must conform to the relevant Indian Standard specifications published by BIS.
3.3 Government Advisories and the Adoption Mechanism
The DGFS issued a formal advisory on 18 April 2017 to all State governments directing them to incorporate NBC 2016 Part 4 into their building bylaws and make its provisions mandatory. The MoHUA similarly issued the Model Building Byelaws 2016, which translates NBC fire safety provisions into bylaw language for states to adopt. Once adopted by a state, these provisions transition from recommendations to legally enforceable requirements. The BIS Act 2016 (Section 16) further empowers the Central Government to make compliance with an Indian Standard compulsory for specified goods, articles, processes, systems, or services by notification in the Official Gazette.
3.4 History and Revisions of the NBC
The NBC was first published in 1970. Major revisions were undertaken in 1983, 2005 and in 2016. The NBC 2016 edition comprises two volumes covering 12 Parts (Parts 0 through 12), with each Part addressing a discrete area of construction governance. BIS has also released sectional draft revisions for public comment in 2025 under document reference CED 46 (26990) WC, covering administrative and fire safety provisions and a separate draft for Part 8 Section 6 on Information and Communication Enabled Installations (March 2025).
4. The New Reform
According to reporting in open sources, the GoI is replacing the NBC with a National Building Standard (NBS). The key structural features of this change are: -
The NBS will be nonbinding, and principle based, departing from the prescriptive model code approach of the NBC.
States will gain expanded regulatory autonomy to frame their own building rules.
The central framework will function as guidance rather than as a minimum compliance baseline.
4.1 Fire Safety Reclassified as Advisory
The most critical and contested change is the reclassification of fire safety provisions. Under the NBC regime, fire safety provisions in Part 4 became binding when states incorporated them into their bylaws, a process actively promoted through the April 2017 DGFS advisory and MoHUA's Model Building Byelaws 2016. Under the NBS, fire safety provisions are retained but only as advisories issued to state governments, without a mandatory adoption mechanism.
This advisory only model raises acute concern given that the existing system, which also formally depended on state adoption, already produced uneven compliance across India's 28 states and 8 Union Territories. A shift to an explicitly non-binding framework risks compounding that deficit without new countervailing mechanisms.
4.2 Draft NBC 2025
In a striking internal policy contradiction, BIS simultaneously released draft chapters of a revised National Building Code for public comment during 2025. These drafts (document CED 46 (26990) WC, March 2025) propose fire safety requirements that go substantially further than NBC 2016: -
Addressable fire detection systems, which can identify the precise location of a fire within a building, proposed as mandatory in residential buildings above 15 metres.
Smart integrated alarm and evacuation systems capable of guiding safe, efficient egress from specific fire affected zones.
Mandatory integration of fire systems with Building Management Systems (BMS) for real-time monitoring in commercial structures.
Compliance with IS/ISO 7240 (the Indian adoption of the international fire detection and alarm standard series) as the detection performance baseline.
The March 2025 BIS draft for Part 8 Section 6 additionally proposes requirements for modern Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in buildings, including Wi-Fi 6/6E, 5G, Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) and high-speed cabling supporting data transfer up to 25/40 Gbps.
Publishing stronger draft fire safety requirements while simultaneously reclassifying those requirements as advisory represents a significant policy contradiction, one that weakens the implementation force of the very improvements the technical community has worked to introduce.
5. Legal and Constitutional Dimensions
5.1 Federal Structure
Building regulation in India falls under Entry 5 of List II (State List) of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India, meaning states have the primary legislative competence to regulate building construction. Fire services are similarly included as a municipal function under the Twelfth Schedule (Article 243W), making states and municipalities the primary agencies for fire prevention and safety enforcement.
The NBS reform therefore has a principled constitutional basis, the Central Government cannot directly mandate building construction standards on states and the NBC's binding character has always depended entirely on state level adoption. In this respect, the NBS framework reflects constitutional reality more honestly than the NBC regime, which created de facto binding norms through an advisory cascade that states could and often did, ignore.
5.2 The Existing Mechanism
Under the NBC regime, the legal mechanism operated as a cascade. BIS published a standard, MHA/MoHUA issued advisory to states, states incorporated provisions into bylaws, local bodies enforced compliance. Once adopted by a state, violations of fire safety provisions became actionable, grounds for refusal of No Objection Certificates (NOCs), demolition orders, or criminal prosecution under applicable state laws.
The NBS approach removes the normative pressure at the top of this cascade. Without a mandatory baseline, the legal basis for uniform minimum fire safety thresholds and the associated liability framework, becomes ambiguous. If a state has not adopted fire safety norms, the duty of care owed by a developer or building owner is unclear.
5.3 Mandatory Certification Powers Under the BIS Act 2016
Section 16 of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016 (No. 11 of 2016) empowers the Central Government, after consulting BIS, to make compliance with an Indian Standard compulsory for specific goods, articles, processes, systems or services by notification in the Official Gazette. This power has been exercised for products including cement, LPG cylinders, baby food and electronic goods. To date, no such mandatory compliance notification has been issued specifically for building fire safety systems. Deploying this power selectively, to make addressable fire detection systems mandatory above specified building thresholds, would create a legally binding floor without unconstitutionally overriding state legislative competence on building regulation generally.
6. Fire Safety Governance in India
6.1 Regulatory Framework
Fire safety regulation in India operates across multiple tiers: -
BIS standards, NBC Part 4 and associated Indian Standards covering fire equipment, detection systems, suppression apparatus and construction materials.
State fire service laws, for example, the Maharashtra Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act, 2006, the Delhi Fire Service Act, 2007.
Municipal bylaws, which translate state and national guidance into locally enforceable instruments, such as the MoHUA Model Building Bye Laws 2016 (Chapter 7).
DGFS advisories, which coordinate national level fire safety policy and direct states on NBC adoption.
This layered system has functioned imperfectly but has provided a structure within which progressive states have enacted strong protections. Maharashtra and Delhi, for example, require Fire Prevention and Life Safety (FPLS) certificates before building occupation for buildings above 15 metres and annual fire safety audits for specified commercial buildings.
6.2 Verified Compliance Data
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the most recent officially verified data on fire related mortality in India is available up to 2023 through its Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) reports. In 2022, 7,435 persons died in 7,566 fire accidents across the country, with more than half of these fatalities occurring in residential or dwelling buildings.
The 2023 data show a slight decline, with 6,891 deaths reported in 7,054 fire incidents nationwide.
6.3 Structural Contributors to the Compliance Gap
The gap between regulatory provisions and safe buildings in practice, already visible under the more directive NBC regime, stems from several documented structural factors: -
The DGFS advisory of 2017 urged all states to incorporate NBC 2016 Part 4 into bylaws, but formal adoption across all states and Union Territories has not been universal or uniform.
Local bodies frequently fail to conduct regular fire safety audits or enforce compliance after the initial NOC is granted.
The NBC itself contains provisions allowing local heads and fire services to grant exemptions from requirements in cases of 'practical difficulty or to avoid unnecessary hardship’, a discretion that is frequently invoked.
Shortage of trained fire service personnel in many states limits the frequency and rigour of post occupancy inspections.
7. Analysis of the Reform
7.1 Advantages of the NBS Approach
a. Regulatory Flexibility
The NBS framework allows states to tailor building norms to local geography, urban density, climate zone, soil conditions and administrative capacity. India's diversity, from a coastal high-rise city like Mumbai to a Himalayan hill station, makes uniform national prescription arguably imprecise. State level customisation can produce better-targeted regulation where the institutional capacity to design and enforce it exists.
b. Constitutional Alignment
The NBS honestly reflects the constitutional distribution of legislative power. Rather than operating through an advisory cascade whose nonbinding character could be, and was, exploited by states, the new framework positions central standards as what they constitutionally are: guidance, not mandates. This clarity may, in the long run, produce more transparent accountability.
c. Streamlined Regulatory Architecture
Replacing the multi-volume, 12-Part NBC with a leaner Indian Standard format reduces administrative complexity. A more compact standard can be updated more nimbly as technology and construction practices evolve, addressing a recognised limitation of the NBC's bulk.
7.2 Risks and Concerns
a. Dilution of Fire Safety Standards
The most serious risk is that fire safety, formally reclassified as advisory, leads to reduced adoption, particularly in states with weaker regulatory cultures or under pressure from the construction industry. The advisory status removes the legal clarity that underpinned fire NOC conditions and liability claims in adopting states.
b. Regulatory Fragmentation
Different states may adopt divergent safety thresholds and inconsistent enforcement mechanisms, creating a patchwork regulatory landscape. Developers may be drawn to register projects in jurisdictions with weaker standards. The NCRB ADSI 2022 data already reveals substantial state level variation in fire mortality, suggesting that a move toward greater state discretion without mandatory baselines risks widening those gaps further.
c. Institutional Capacity Gaps
Not all states possess equal technical expertise or enforcement infrastructure to draft and operationalise equivalent fire safety norms. The NBS framework implicitly assumes a level of state regulatory capacity that many states do not yet have, creating systematic risk concentrated precisely where urban populations and exposure are growing fastest.
7.3 The Internal Policy Contradiction
The simultaneous publication of a stronger fire safety draft (NBC 2025, CED 46 (26990) WC) and the reclassification of fire safety as advisory is a significant policy contradiction. Draft NBC 2025 Part 4 provisions, addressable detection, BMS integration, IS/ISO 7240 compliance, represent the technical direction that fire safety in Indian buildings must take. Relegating those provisions to advisory status at the very moment they become most technologically robust undermines the rationale for the modernisation effort.
8. Comparative Overview: NBC 2016 vs. New Standard / NBS 2025
Dimension | NBC 2016 (Prior Regime) | New Standard / NBS 2025 |
Document type | Multi-volume model code (12 Parts, 2 Volumes) | Reformatted as revised Indian Standard (IS), principle-based |
Legal status | Recommendatory, binding only when adopted by state via bylaws | Non-binding, advisory, states have expanded regulatory autonomy |
Fire safety (Part 4) | Binding when adopted via state bylaws, states directed by DGFS advisory | Reclassified as advisory, states issued advisories but no mandatory adoption mechanism |
Fire detection (>15 m) | Automatic fire alarm system required (Section 7.24, Model Building Byelaws) | Addressable, location-specific detection systems proposed in NBC draft 2025 |
Seismic reference | IS 1893 (2002 edition) | Revised IS 1893 Part 1 (2025), new Zone VI for Himalayan arc |
ICT / smart building | Limited provisions | Revised draft Part 8 Section 6 (March 2025): Wi-Fi 6/6E, 5G, DAS |
Enforcement mechanism | BIS issues standard, state adopts into bylaws, local body enforces | State discretion, no mandatory central backstop |
9. Risk Matrix: Advisory Fire Safety Under the NBS Framework
Risk Category | Manifestation | Affected Stakeholders |
Safety dilution | States may omit fire safety from bylaws under developer pressure | Building occupants, residents |
Regulatory fragmentation | Divergent thresholds across states, possible jurisdiction arbitrage | Developers, insurers, lenders |
Capacity gaps | States without technical personnel may draft weaker norms | Local bodies, urban poor |
Compliance culture | Advisory status undermines deterrence; buildings may hold NOCs but lack safe systems | Emergency services, public |
Legal vacuum | No mandatory baseline creates ambiguity in tort and criminal liability for fire incidents | Courts, victims, regulators |
10. Comparative Perspective
Globally, fire safety provisions in building codes are treated as non-negotiable mandatory requirements, not areas where advisory or purely discretionary frameworks are applied. Key international reference points include: -
United Kingdom The Building Safety Act 2022, enacted following the Grenfell Tower fire, established the Building Safety Regulator within the Health and Safety Executive with statutory powers over high rise residential buildings (those above 18 metres or 7 storeys). The Act created mandatory Gateway checkpoints at design, construction and occupation stages, making fire safety compliance a legal condition for building occupation, not an advisory benchmark.
United States. The International Building Code (IBC) and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards are adopted at the state and local level, but fire safety provisions are never voluntary within those adoptions. Federal guidance through agencies such as the US Fire Administration reinforces mandatory state compliance.
Canada. The 2025 National Building Code of Canada retains mandatory fire safety provisions and provincial adoption, while not instantaneous, is universal in practice. The 2025 model code explicitly retains and, in some cases, strengthens high-rise fire safety requirements.
India's move toward an advisory model for fire safety norms diverges from the direction of regulatory travel in comparable economies. The global trajectory since major urban fires, Grenfell (UK, 2017), Station Nightclub (US, 2003) and others, has been consistently toward stronger mandatory requirements and more granular state oversight, not relaxation.
11. Recommendations
The binary framing, prescriptive NBC versus fully advisory NBS, is a false dilemma. A constitutionally feasible, practically superior hybrid approach is available: -
11.1 Mandatory Notification Under Section 16, BIS Act 2016
The Central Government should exercise its power under Section 16 of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016 to issue a mandatory compliance notification for fire safety systems, specifically, automatic addressable fire detection and alarm systems conforming to IS/ISO 7240, in all new buildings above 15 metres in height. This creates a legally binding minimum floor without overriding state legislative competence on building regulation generally.
11.2 Fiscal Incentives for State Adoption
Allocations under centrally sponsored housing programmes (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and successor schemes), Smart Cities Mission disbursements and AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) grants should be conditionally linked to state adoption of fire safety provisions meeting at least the standards proposed in the NBC draft 2025. This uses the Centre's fiscal leverage without constitutional overreach.
11.3 State Capacity Building
BIS and MoHUA should co-fund a structured programme to build state-level technical capacity for fire safety bylaw drafting, enforcement protocol development and digital NOC (No Objection Certificate) issuance systems. This directly addresses the capacity gaps that make the advisory model particularly risky for states with weaker regulatory infrastructure.
11.4 Gazette the NBC 2025 Fire Safety Provisions as an Indian Standard
The NBC draft 2025 Part 4 provisions on addressable detection, BMS integration and IS/ISO 7240 compliance should be finalised and gazetted as an Indian Standard by BIS at the earliest. Even absent formal mandatory notification, a gazetted IS establishes a clear, citable reference standard for courts assessing negligence, insurers evaluating risk, fire NOC authorities setting conditions and Registered Building Professionals (RBPs) certifying compliance.
12. Conclusion
The transition from the National Building Code (NBC) to the National Building Standard (NBS) represents a fundamental regulatory philosophy shift, from uniform minimum safety standards enforced through state bylaw adoption, to decentralised regulatory discretion operating under central advisory guidance. The reform has principled constitutional grounds and genuine administrative advantages. It also carries serious risks, concentrated most acutely in the reclassification of fire safety provisions as advisory.
The NCRB Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) 2022 report documents 7,435 fire-related deaths in a single year, more than half in residential buildings. This figure, drawn from official government data, underlines the stakes of effective fire safety enforcement and the cost of governance gaps in this domain. The existing NBC regime, with its DGFS advisories and MoHUA model bylaws, already struggled to achieve uniform state-level adoption, a shift to an explicitly advisory NBS without compensating mechanisms risks amplifying that deficit.
The right response is not to reverse the NBS reform but to complete it properly, using the mandatory certification powers available under Section 16 of the BIS Act 2016 to anchor fire safety requirements, deploying fiscal conditionality to incentivise state adoption, investing in state regulatory capacity, and promptly gazetting the technically superior NBC draft 2025 Part 4 provisions as an Indian Standard. India's rapidly urbanising built environment and the 7,400-plus lives at stake annually, warrant no less.
References
1. Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016 (No. 11 of 2016). Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India. India Code. https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/2157
2. Bureau of Indian Standards. National Building Code of India (NBC). BIS Technical Department, Civil Engineering (CED 46). https://www.bis.gov.in/standards/technical-department/national-building-code/
3. Bureau of Indian Standards. Draft National Building Code, CED 46 (26990) WC, March 2025. Draft for public comments, not yet gazetted as final standard. https://www.bis.gov.in/standards/technical-department/national-building-code/
4. Directorate General of Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards, Ministry of Home Affairs. National Building Code of India (Fire and Life Safety), Advisory to State Governments, 18 April 2017. https://dgfscdhg.gov.in/national-building-code-india-fire-and-life-safety
5. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Model Building Byelaws, 2016, Chapter 7: Fire Protection and Fire Safety Requirements. https://mohua.gov.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/Chap-7.pdf
6. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI), 2022 Report. Published 1 December 2023. Ministry of Home Affairs. https://www.data.gov.in/catalog/accidental-deaths-suicides-india-adsi-2022
7. Bureau of Indian Standards. BIS Act, Rules and Regulations, Official BIS portal. https://www.bis.gov.in/the-bureau/bis-act-rules-and-regulations/
8. Bureau of Indian Standards (via NASSCOM Community). Draft National Building Code Part 8, Building Services Section 6, Information and Communication Enabled Installations. March 2025. https://community.nasscom.in/index.php/communities/public-policy/draft-draft-national-building-code-india-part-8-building-services-section
9. IITK-GSDMA (Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur / Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority). Commentary on National Building Code Part 4: Fire and Life Safety. https://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/IITK-GSDMA/F03.pdf
10. NFire. 'NBC 2025 Fire Alarm Requirements: What Every Building Above 15m in India Must Have.' February 2026. https://nfire.in/fire-alarm-requirements-for-buildings-above-15m-in-indiathe-complete-nbc-2025-compliance-guide/
11. Consultivo. 'Guardians of Compliance: India's Fire Safety Rules and Regulations.' February 2026. https://consultivo.in/blogs/fire-safety-rules-regulations-india/
12. Down to Earth / DownToEarth.org. 'Expert links recent building fires in India to extreme heat wave, NCRB 2022 fire death data cited.' May 2024. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/climate-change/is-the-recent-spate-of-building-fires-in-india-due-to-extreme-heat-yes-says-expert
13. UK Building Safety Act 2022 (c. 30). legislation.gov.uk, His Majesty's Stationery Office. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/30/contents
14. National Research Council of Canada. National Building Code of Canada 2025. NRC Publications. https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/eng/view/erratum/?id=515340b5-f4e0-4798-be69-692e4ec423e8
END OF DOCUMENT
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