Examine the constitutional and administrative reasons behind uneven enforcement of building regulations across Indian cities.

Under the Twelfth Schedule inserted by the 74th Amendment, "urban planning including town planning" and regulation of land use are municipal functions [1]. Yet collapses of buildings, hoardings and stepwells recur unevenly across cities, indicating that the fault lies less in the rulebook than in constitutional design and administrative capacity.

Constitutional and legal reasons

• Twelfth Schedule is only illustrative: States decide which functions to actually devolve, so town planning powers remain split between ULBs and State development authorities, producing city-to-city variance [1].
• No binding national standard: the Model Building Bye-Laws, 2016 (TCPO, MoHUA) are advisory guidance for States and ULBs, adopted in differing degrees [2][3].
• Regularisation statutes dilute deterrence: laws such as the Andhra Pradesh Regularisation of Unauthorised Constructions Act, 2003 convert violation into a payable fee; the Supreme Court in Rajendra Kumar Barjatya (2024) held that unauthorised construction cannot be legalised by delay, occupancy or investment [4].

Fiscal reasons

• Municipal corporations' revenue receipts are barely 0.6% of GDP against the Centre's 9.2% and States' 14.6% [5]; inspectors, surveys and demolition litigation are unaffordable for most ULBs.
• Revenue is concentrated in a few large corporations, and rising dependence on State transfers weakens ULBs against locally powerful builders [5].

Administrative reasons

• Conflict of roles: the same authority sanctions the plan and inspects compliance, so reporting a deviation indicts one's own office [2].
• Capacity deficit: building departments in developing economies cannot inspect the volume of construction in fast-growing cities, so informal building becomes the norm [6].
• Fragmented accountability: police can only intimate civic agencies, enabling post-tragedy buck-passing [3].

Uneven enforcement is thus a problem of incomplete devolution, unfunded mandates and conflicted administration. Implementing the Court's directions—time-bound disposal of applications and departmental action against erring officials [4]—alongside accredited third-party structural certification [6], online publication of sanctioned plans, and property-tax strengthening can convert paper bye-laws into enforceable safety, realising the 74th Amendment's promise of capable local self-government.