Speaking on the occasion of India Retail Forum’08 being held in Mumbai about the future concept of mall development, Arvind Nair, MD, DLF Retail, said, “The civic bye-laws in India hamper the fuller development of concepts, especially for the mall developers.”
He elaborated: “Many of the towns and states have different bye-laws for mall developers. For instance, under the laws ‘atrium’ is considered a property construction.”
Citing an example, Nair said, “The laws require large number of toilets for men that amount to as high as 70 per cent of the total number of toilets in a mall even when there are less number of male shoppers as compared to female shoppers.”
Nair further reiterated the legal hurdles in building multi-level car parking. He called for partnership between retail, mall developers and the civic authorities as part of the future concept.