Discuss why India's repeated urban infrastructure collapses reflect enforcement failure rather than legislative inadequacy. Suggest institutional reforms.

Building collapses, stepwell tragedies and hoarding failures recur not because India lacks building law, but because the machinery meant to apply it is under-funded, conflicted and unaccountable. The Supreme Court's December 2024 ruling reads as an indictment of enforcement, not of statute [1].

The regulatory scaffolding already exists

• Model Building Bye-Laws, 2016, issued by the Town & Country Planning Organisation under MoHUA, give States and ULBs standardised norms on coverage, height, fire and structural safety [2].
• These are operationalised through State Municipal Corporation and Town Planning Acts and Development Control Regulations, with urban planning placed in the Twelfth Schedule by the 74th Amendment [3].

Where enforcement actually breaks

• Fiscal starvation: total municipal revenue is about 0.75% of GDP, against roughly 5% in Brazil and 6% in South Africa — too little for inspectors, surveys, demolition machinery or litigation [4].
• Concentration: the top 10 municipal corporations collect over 58% of municipal revenue, so smaller cities carry identical bye-laws with negligible capacity [4].
• Conflict of interest: the same authority sanctions the plan and inspects the building; flagging a violation indicts one's own office [5].
• Performative accountability: arrests, a suspension and compensation follow each tragedy, while the Court had to separately direct action against erring officials and 90-day disposal of regularisation applications [1].

Reforms that follow existing directions

• End routine regularisation amnesties — permissible only as exceptional, one-time, residential measures after survey, as the Court held [1].
• Mandate accredited third-party structural certification, separating the checker from the approver [5].
• Publish sanctioned plans and inspection records online; transparency raises compliance more than harsher penalties [5].
• Strengthen property tax and own-source revenue so ULBs can fund the enforcement they are mandated to deliver [4].

Enforcement failure is therefore a design and financing failure. Matching the 74th Amendment's devolution of function with devolution of funds, functionaries and independent inspection would convert sound law into safe cities.