The last chapter of UDCPR handles four things that do not fit anywhere else, and two of them matter well beyond their length: distances for an activity that is not a building, and an instrument that outranks the code itself.
Key takeaways
- No quarrying or crushing is permitted within 200 m of a 30 m or wider road, a railway line, or any human settlement.
- Where blasting is involved, that distance rises to at least 500 m.
- Quarrying must leave a capping of at least half a metre so vegetation can be supported, and must not cause a depression below average ground level.
- Mobile towers are not governed by UDCPR at all: Regulation 15.2 defers to the telecom and IT department norms.
- A Local Area Plan prevails over UDCPR wherever the two are inconsistent.
- Regulation 15.4 requires streets to be designed for all users, including safe movement for differently abled persons.
Quarrying, and the two distances
Chapter 15, Regulation 15.1, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025 is the only place in the code that regulates an activity most buyers never think about until it is next door.
The operative limit is a pair of distances. No quarrying and crushing shall be permitted if a highway or public road 30 m or more in width, a railway line, or any human settlement is located within 200 m of the quarrying site. Where the operation involves blasting, the distance is at least 500 m.
The rest of the regulation is about what a working quarry must do.
| Requirement | What the regulation specifies |
|---|---|
| Ground condition | Operations shall not expose hard rock. A capping of at least half a metre is to be left so it can support vegetation and plantation later, and operations shall not cause a depression below average ground level |
| Water courses | Any water course from a higher slope should be properly diverted out of the quarry area, so minimum water flows into the quarry and is safely channelled out of any nearby human settlement |
| Dust on site | Water shall be sprayed at least once a day over the roads at the quarry site and the nearby area |
| Dust on access roads | The kachha road leading to the quarry shall invariably be sprayed while trucks carry murum, with hoods at transfer points, vulcanised conveyor belt joints, under belt cleaning devices and a dust extraction system, plus roadside plantation to arrest dust |
For anyone buying land or a flat near an active or proposed quarry, the two distances are the check that can be made from a map before anything else. Two hundred metres from a settlement, five hundred where blasting is involved.
The dust and water provisions are worth reading for a different reason: they describe what a compliant quarry looks like in operation. A site not spraying its access road, or one that has cut below the surrounding ground level, is visibly outside what the regulation contemplates.
Mobile towers, which the code does not decide
Chapter 15, Regulation 15.2, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025*** is three lines, and what it does is hand the subject over.
Erection or setting up of telecommunication cell sites and base stations, and installation of the equipment for a telecommunication network, shall be permissible as per the norms of the Department of Telecommunication or Information Technology, or the concerned department of the Central or State Government.
The consolidation also footnotes a directive under section 154 of the MR&TP Act dated 25 August 2023, regarding inclusion of an addendum to the Model Building Bye-Laws 2016.
This is worth stating plainly because the question comes up often and the answer is not in this code. UDCPR does not set siting, height or clearance rules for mobile towers. It says the telecom norms apply.
So a resident objecting to a tower, or a developer planning one, will not find the operative standard in Chapter 15. The relevant instruments are the telecom department's norms and the model bye-law addendum brought in by the 2023 directive, and this article does not summarise them because the consolidation does not contain them.
The plan that outranks the code
Chapter 15, Regulation 15.3, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025 is the most consequential provision in the chapter and the easiest to miss.
A Local Area Plan is a plan for the comprehensive development of a particular area in a city or town, which may consist of more detailed provisions than the Development Plan, addressing local requirements. The Authority may prepare one covering micro level planning requirements, local area specific regulations and urban design. It follows a procedure similar to section 33 of the MR&TP Act, 1966, and comes into force after State Government approval.
Then the sentence: in the event of provisions of the local area plan not being consistent with UDCPR, the provisions of the local area plan shall prevail.
That puts a Local Area Plan alongside the other instruments in this code that outrank the general chapters. Chapter 10's city specific regulations apply notwithstanding anything else. Chapter 5's additional provisions prevail in Regional Plan areas. Mira-Bhayandar's 10.7.2 hands a whole notified area to a separate Tourism Development Plan.
A Local Area Plan joins that list, and unlike the others it is not confined to a named authority or a mapped zone. Any Authority may prepare one for any area. So the practical instruction stays what it has been throughout this series: establish which documents govern the parcel before reading any general chapter, because the general chapters are the residue after every prevailing instrument has been applied.
Streets, as a design duty
Chapter 15, Regulation 15.4, Guidelines for Street Design in City / Town* closes the chapter with an obligation rather than a dimension. The Authority shall ensure complete design of the street: streets shall be designed to cater to the needs of all users and activities, including smooth and convenient vehicular movement, safe and unhampered pedestrian movement for all age groups, safe and easy movement of differently abled persons, and street furniture.
It is a duty on the Authority rather than on a developer, and it is drafted as an outcome rather than a specification, which makes it a useful thing to quote when a layout treats footpaths as leftover space.
What to check
- On any site near quarrying, measure 200 m, and 500 m if blasting is involved.
- For a mobile tower question, go to the telecom norms, not to UDCPR.
- Ask whether a Local Area Plan covers the parcel, because it prevails over this code where the two differ.
- Read Chapter 10 and Chapter 5 first where either applies, for the same reason.
- Then read the general chapters, beginning with which rulebook governs your plot.
Where the filings come in
None of these four subjects appear in the RERA register, which records projects rather than quarries, towers or plans.
What the register does give, free, is the pattern of registered development around a location: the projects, their filed land areas, their buildings and floors, the promoters' extension histories with the reasons given, and any complaints or litigation with case numbers, at reragenie.com.
ReraGenie's area consolidated report, Rs 2,999 for the first project and Rs 1,999 per additional one, reads a whole micro-market's filings together, and the project analysis at Rs 2,999 does the same for a single scheme.
Source: Unified Development Control and Promotion Regulations for Maharashtra, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025. Sanctioned under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966.
Evaluating a micro-market or a land parcel?
The ReraGenie project analysis reads every filing in your competitive set: supply, absorption, pricing and promoter records. Rs 2,999 per project, area consolidated reports from Rs 2,999.
See the project analysis