East Delhi TOD project still incomplete, but Centre to look at 14 more

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech last week, announced that the Centre will formulate transit-oriented development (TOD) plans for 14 of India’s largest cities. However, one such project which is being piloted by central agencies, is yet to be completed even after a decade.
The Delhi Development Authority (DDA), keeping in mind the twin problems of traffic congestion and vehicular pollution in the Capital, is working on the Karkardooma TOD project — an urban planning concept in which mass transit nodes like Metro stations and bus terminuses act as a centre around which offices, residences, and public spaces are built.
The proportion of residential, commercial, and civic facilities would be approximately 70%, 10% and 20%, respectively. Over and above, 15% additional area will be developed for economically weaker sections (EWS), a DDA spokesperson said.
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The authority first floated the idea of a greenfield TOD project at Karkardooma in its master plan 2021, which was released in 2007. The construction work for the project was set to start by 2016 after then lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung approved the TOD policy in February 2015.
At that time, the project was to comprise 4,800 houses and 80,000 sq m of retail space, with the tallest building being 100 storeys high.
However, the scope of the project has since been curtailed, and construction on the project, which began in December 2019, is now limited to 2000 houses.
However, given the project’s slow implementation and the absence of a commercial development component in the current phase, experts are wary of the missed opportunity to realise the maximum benefits of such a greenfield development, even as Delhi’s traffic worsens.
Fulfilling criteria
NBCC, a public sector undertaking under the ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA), which is executing the first phase of the project, said that a building block of 22 floors housing 498 flats built for the economically weaker section along with three civic buildings at the TOD site is ready. Further, the construction of two residential buildings will be ready by March 2025, said DDA.
“Once ready, this will be the first project in India to be developed based on TOD norms, with two Metro stations located within the site and the Anand Vihar ISBT and railway station in close vicinity,” a senior NBCC official said, adding the entire site won’t have any compound walls and can be accessed by foot from all possible sides.
Another 1,026 flats (luxury and semi-luxury 2BHKs) spread across ten towers are expected to be ready by March 2025. Of these ten towers, one will be 45 floors — slated to be the tallest building in the Capital — three will be of 33 floors, and six of the remaining towers will be 10 floors each. Along with these residential towers, NBCC is also building three civic facilities housing schools, community halls, and libraries for DDA.
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Officials working at the site said the entire phase 1 of the project, including roads and utility connections to these buildings, is only expected to be ready by September 2026.
Despite the first phase having no commercial development, the DDA maintained that the launch of Phase-1 will fulfil the TOD criteria, help bring people and jobs closer to mass transit, and lead to much-needed integration of land use and transport in the city. And that it will result in compact, walkable, mixed-use developments within the influence zones of transit stations.
“This is a critical paradigm shift that can potentially improve public transit ridership, reduce vehicular congestion, and reduce greenhouse emissions and pollution in the long term. TOD is also an important strategy for unlocking the latent economic potential and land value in the city,” the DDA spokesperson added without stating when the next phases of construction including the commercial development will begin.
Environmentally friendly design
NBCC said the Karkardooma TOD will be the first-of-its-kind development project in India to have a central green lung, with 30% of the site area as open, green public space. In addition, a cricket ground as well as an open gym for residents are also being readied. Officials at the site said that the entire 60 acres of the site will be barrier-free for pedestrians, following TOD principles.
Dikshu C Kukreja, managing principal of CP Kukreja Architects that is designing the project, said that the high-rise expansion will free up a considerable amount of area for common, green spaces.
“The tallest tower will behave like a massive sound absorber and has been ideally envisioned as a ‘soundscraper’ which will help combat air and noise pollution,” Kukreja said. The facades will use a combination of layers of traditional lattice in patterns to trap dust and create standing waves that dampen out any noise emanating from the nearby Anand Vihar terminus and high-speed corridors around, he said.
The NBCC official said they are aiming for a Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) 3-star rating — in line with green building norms, they have used autoclaved aerated concrete blocks instead of clay bricks, and to ensure zero water wastage, a dual flushing system and a sewer treatment plant with a capacity to handle 6 million litres per day are being installed. The site will also have 66 rainwater harvesting pits of 60 cubic metres capacity, and a rooftop solar energy capacity of 300KW, among other green features.
Missed opportunity and lessons to learn
While appreciating TOD as a concept, experts question the execution of the Karkardooma project.
Rutul Joshi, senior associate professor of urban planning at CEPT University, said that ideally, TOD projects should not be undertaken by the government itself, but rather, the government should create an enabling environment by relaxing FAR norms, flexible land use rights and creating walkable areas around transit nodes.
“Ideally, TOD should be a city-wide phenomenon and not spot projects like Karkardooma. At most, the government can ensure that a certain portion of the land is reserved for greenery and open spaces. The rest of the project should be free from any bindings to the developer,” he said.
Moreover, at Karkardooma, the scope of the project was chosen to be too large. Instead, he said, a TOD should focus on plotted development where developers of all sizes are involved in an area.
Jagan Shah, CEO of The Infravision Foundation and former director of the National Institute of Urban Affairs — an autonomous MoHUA body — said that the development follows neither the ministry’s advisory on transit-oriented development issued in September 2023, nor complies with its tenets such as mixed land use and compact high-density development that relies on non-motorised transport networks rather than cars.
“This is like putting the cart before the horse,” he said.
“Without a coherent plan, such development projects will perpetuate the arbitrariness that has characterised the development of the national capital for decades.”
Other experts too have pointed out the necessity of master planning for TOD schemes to be successful. In their paper titled ‘Transit Oriented Development – The Idea and Its Beginnings in India’ published in the India Infrastructure Report 2023, PRK Murthy and SC Deshpande, former officers at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, said that greenfield TOD plan for Navi Mumbai along the Mankhrud-Belapur-Panvel suburban rail line in the 1970s has been a success while the plan to densify the area around the Metro Line 1 (Versova-Ghatkopar) in the same city without a proper TOD policy as part of the master plan failed.