Master plan and road widening

A flat is not just the building it sits in. What you may eventually do with the plot, what your neighbour may build next door, and whether the road outside your window is a fixed width or a reserved one are all questions the building itself cannot answer – they are answered by the master plan and the zoning regulations made under it. Most buyers never open either document. This guide is about the parts of both that actually change what a flat is worth owning: the zone your plot sits in, what that zone permits, whether the road in front is marked for widening, and what happens to your setback if it is.

None of this is about the building’s own approvals – our guide to who approved the building covers that. This one is about the land underneath and around it: the master plan that fixes what may be built where, the widening lines that can eat into a plot years after a building is finished, the compensation scheme for land lost that way, and what official channels actually say about the metro and other infrastructure nearby – as against what a sales pitch says about it.

The master plan, in force today

Bengaluru’s zoning runs off a single document: the Revised Master Plan, 2015 (RMP 2015), made by the Bangalore Development Authority under the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961 and approved by the state government. It fixes a land-use zone for every part of the Local Planning Area, and a separate volume, the Zonal Regulations, sets out what each zone permits. RMP 2015 is not frozen: the government continues to amend the Zonal Regulations by gazette notification, most recently with a draft published in June 2026 – itself proof that RMP 2015, not a successor plan, is still the document being amended.

A successor has been drafted. BDA’s own “Revised Master Plan for Bengaluru – 2031” sets out a new vision and new zoning, but the document itself is titled, on every page, a draft. It has not been brought into force by any gazette notification this guide could find. Until one is, RMP 2015 and its amendments are what apply to your plot, not the 2031 draft’s proposals.

To check a specific plot’s zone officially, the Zonal Regulations point to one place: the Proposed Land Use Zoning Plan for that planning district, which is the master plan’s own map sheet. The regulations say so directly, and add what to do if the map is unclear: “The exact location and specific regulations applicable for a particular zone is to be verified from the Proposed Land Use Zoning Plans… in case of uncertainty as regards the boundary or interpretation, it shall be referred to the authority for final decision.” In practice that means the planning authority covering your address – the Greater Bengaluru Authority inside Greater Bengaluru, or the relevant local planning authority outside it – not a broker’s word for it.

Zoning categories, in brief

The Zonal Regulations sort all land into nine broad categories, each with its own chapter setting out what may be built and what else is allowed alongside it. A flat can only be built as of right in some of them.

Two rules cut across all of them. First, a plot’s permitted floor area ratio (FAR) also depends on the width of the road it fronts, which our site-visit guide sets out in full; this guide does not repeat that table. Second, the whole Local Planning Area is also divided into three concentric rings – inside the Core Ring Road, between it and the Outer Ring Road, and beyond – called Zone A, B and C for a different purpose: working out how much a transferable development right is worth, which is the subject of two sections below.

Proposed road widening

A road you see as a fixed width today can be a reserved, wider one on paper. The master plan and its regulations do this two ways. First, the Zonal Regulations publish a schedule of fixed building lines for specific roads – a minimum setback measured from the edge of the road, sized for a future widening – so that what is built today does not have to be demolished when the road is eventually widened. Second, the planning authority separately notifies road-formation and widening proposals as part of the master plan’s own implementation, and the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 gives the City Corporation the power to prescribe a building line or street alignment for any public street, provided it is not narrower than what the master plan and zoning regulations already require.

Either way, the reserved strip shows up on the master plan’s own sheets and on the authority’s record for that road, not necessarily on a sale brochure. Before you buy, ask the planning authority directly whether the road fronting your plot carries a notified building line or a widening reservation, rather than judging by the road’s width on the day you visit.

TDR for land lost to widening

Karnataka gives an owner two different routes when land is taken for road widening, and they pay very differently.

The TDR route is the one worth understanding in more detail, because its value depends on where the certificate is generated and where it is used. The Zonal Regulations set the extra floor area at one and a half times the area surrendered: “The Planning Authority… permits development rights in the form of additional floor area which shall be equal to one and half times the area surrendered.” The certificate, called a DRC, is valid for five years and renewable once; it cannot be used on a plot fronting a road under 9 m wide.

Where you use it matters as much as how much you are issued. The regulations apply a conversion table (Table 25) between the three rings – A (Core Ring Road inward), B (between the two ring roads) and C (beyond the Outer Ring Road) – and it does not treat every ring equally. Surrender 100 sq m of land for road widening on a plot in Ring C, and the certificate is issued for 150 sq m (100 × 1.5). Use that certificate on another plot still in Ring C and you get the full 150 sq m of extra floor area. Move it to a receiving plot in Ring A instead – the city’s congested core – and the same certificate is worth only 75 sq m there: the table discounts a certificate by half when it moves from the outer ring into the innermost one (150 × 0.50). Moving it the other way, from Ring A into Ring C, multiplies it instead, to 300 sq m (150 × 2.00). The receiving plot has its own ceiling too: its FAR may be exceeded by at most 0.60 times its existing FAR on a road of 12 m or more, or 0.40 times on a road of 9–12 m.

One more limit is specific to the metro: a DRC may be used near a metro station only until that station is actually completed, not after – covered together with the metro’s own FAR bonus below.

What this means for a buyer

None of this changes what is already built. It changes what can still happen to the plot a building sits on, and, through the setback, to a ground-floor or lower unit’s outlook. A notified building line or widening reservation sits inside what looks like the developer’s own setback on a site visit; if the road is eventually widened up to that line, the open distance between the building and the road can shrink to what the line allows, not what you saw when you visited. The width of the road fronting a plot also caps the FAR the plot may use in the first place, which is why a wider road generally means a bigger building is legally possible on the land next to yours – our site-visit guide has the table. Where a plot has already given up land under either of the routes above, it may also carry extra, transferred floor area beyond what its own size would otherwise allow, which is worth asking about directly if a building looks larger than the plot suggests it should.

Metro and other infrastructure

Two official facts are worth knowing, and nothing beyond them should be taken on trust from a sales pitch. First, the Zonal Regulations give a direct FAR bonus near a completed metro station: land within 150 m of a metro terminal is eligible for a FAR of up to 4 for all permitted uses, overriding what the zone would otherwise allow – but only once the station is actually complete and BMRCL has confirmed it; until then, the ordinary zoning FAR applies. The same regulations cut off transferable development rights near a metro station once it is complete: TDR may be used there only up to that point, not after.

Second, on the network itself: the Union Cabinet approved Bangalore Metro Rail Project Phase 3 on 16 Aug 2024 – two elevated corridors totalling 44.65 km with 31 stations, JP Nagar 4th Phase to Kempapura along Outer Ring Road West (32.15 km) and Hosahalli to Kadabagere along Magadi Road (12.50 km), at a total cost of ₹15,611 crore, targeted for 2029, taking the network to 220.20 km. That is the extent of what this guide states as fact about the metro’s expansion: an official approval, a route and a station count. A station still years from completion is not yet close enough to earn the 150 m FAR bonus above, whatever an under-construction render suggests, and any further claim about timing or a later phase belongs at BMRCL’s own site, not a brochure.

What can come up next door

The zoning table above tells you what a neighbouring plot may become, not only what it is today: a Residential (Mixed) plot next to your Residential (Main) building can carry more commercial use than you might expect, and an Industrial (Hi-Tech) plot on a narrow road can turn into housing as of right. Checking the adjoining plot’s own zone – not just what currently stands on it – is the only way to know what can legally replace it. Height and setback rules then decide how close and how tall that replacement can be: our guide to choosing floor, facing and unit sets out the setback table by building height and the thresholds that bring in fire-safety and lift requirements, including the 21 m mark at which a high-rise fire NOC becomes compulsory. Neither table is repeated here.

Red flags

• A sales team that cannot say which zone the plot is in. The zone is a matter of public record, not an opinion; if nobody can point to it on the master plan, verify it yourself before you rely on anything else they say about the building’s size or the neighbourhood’s future.
• A generous setback on a road with no confirmed building line. A wide-looking gap to the road today is not a guarantee against a widening reservation you have not checked for.
• A metro station used to justify today’s price or FAR. The 150 m FAR bonus applies only once BMRCL confirms the station is complete; an under-construction line is not yet that.
• “RMP 2031” cited as if it were in force. As of the documents this guide checked, it is still a draft; what applies today is RMP 2015 and its amendments.

Before you buy

• Confirm the zone officially, off the master plan’s own map, not a broker’s description of the area.
• Ask whether the road has a notified building line before you judge a setback by what you see on a site visit.
• Ask whether the plot has already surrendered land for road widening, and under which route, since either can add transferred floor area you would not otherwise expect.
• Check the adjoining plot’s own zone, not just what currently stands on it.
• Treat a metro station as relevant only once BMRCL confirms it complete, whatever a render shows.
• Verify “RMP 2031” claims against whether a plan has actually been brought into force, rather than assuming a newer-sounding document already applies.