That land norms of 1999 issued by the Directorate of Education, the new norms prescribed by the Directorate of Education in December 2002 and the land norms of CBSE affiliation of schools in Delhi, were discussed. It was felt that land being scarce and valuable commodity in Delhi, land norms for schools impact on several facets of basic education. In areas not planned by DDA, such as the walled city, the unauthorized colonies, the unauthorized regularized colonies etc., it was not feasible to have norms for recognition at par with those for planned areas. In the trans Yamuna very little land was available. In other areas, availability of land of the planned dimension was limited in many cases; it was difficult to come by parcels of land of the exact prescribed size. Large norms of land also implies that only the big and well endowed societies and trusts can come forward in the field of education, eliminating the smaller bodies, to the determent of wider spread of education. Another corollary of high capital investment in land would be higher school fees which will have the effect of making education in the privately run institutions costly and less affordable. In view of these consideration both the existing land norms, in the DDA for planning purpose, and in the Education Dept. for recognition purpose need to be rationalized. A major rationalization was already effected on the planning side by reducing the land norms from 4 acres to 2 acres for Senior Secondary Schools; further rationalizations will be effected under the new Master Plan. For recognition purpose, the Directorate of Education need not strictly adhere to the DDA planning norms, and should have a measure of flexibility so as to cater to the growth needs of schools in the planned areas. In areas not planned by DDA such as the Special Area, unauthorized regularized colonies, rural areas etc., more realistic norms are called for.
