Delhi Master Plan MPD-2021
Core idea
Sub-city centers & transit corridors
Why it matters
Framework for India’s capital growth
Description
The Master Plan for Delhi 2021 (MPD-2021), notified in 2007 by the Delhi Development Authority, is the third statutory master plan for India's capital. It proposes a polycentric structure of sub-city centres and district centres, densification along mass rapid transit corridors, redevelopment of existing built-up areas, and regularisation and upgrading of unauthorised colonies, within the wider framework of the National Capital Region. It governs land use across the entire metropolitan territory of Delhi.
Significance
MPD-2021 is central to debates about master planning in the Global South megacity: it carried forward the rigid land-use tradition inherited from the 1962 plan while attempting to accommodate transit-oriented growth and the informal city. Its gaps between plan and reality—informal settlement, unauthorised construction and contested demolitions—have made Delhi a key case in scholarship questioning the adequacy of comprehensive master planning for rapidly growing capitals.
What shaped it
- Transit-oriented development (TOD) (1993)
- World becomes majority urban (2007)
- Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) (1974)
- The master plan (early 20th c.)
- Floor Area Ratio (FAR/FSI) (20th c.)
Plans it influenced
Sources
- https://dda.gov.in/master-plan-2021
- https://dda.gov.in/sites/default/files/inline-files/Master_Plan_for_Delhi_2021_text_report.pdf
- https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/31401529/gazette-notification-mpd2021-delhi-development-a