My First Step in Building a Home: Understanding GHMC Building Rules

Series: Home Construction · Updated: 2025-12-15

This is the first post in a series where I’ll document my journey and learnings while trying to construct a house on the land I own.

I’m starting with the very first hurdle I faced: understanding building permits and rules in Hyderabad.

My plot and the rules

I own a plot that falls in the 100–200 sq.m category. Before getting a building plan prepared and applying for a permit from GHMC, I wanted to understand the rules myself about:

Setbacks
Building height
Whether I could have a stilt floor for parking

When I searched online, I found multiple versions of the rules on different websites. The numbers didn’t always match, and I wasn’t confident about which one was correct. So I decided to go to the most authoritative source I could find.

Step 1: Finding the official source

During my search, I came across the Telangana government’s BuildNow website, which hosts government orders related to building permits.

On this page: https://buildnow.telangana.gov.in/go-and-act/

I searched for “building rules” in the list of Government Orders (G.O.s). The search returned 13 results:

12 were amendments
The last one was the original building rules order title

Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department — Andhra Pradesh Building Rules, 2012 — Orders — Issued on 07/04/2012 — G.O.Ms.No.168

BuildNow search results showing G.O.Ms.168 and amendments — Image 1 — BuildNow search results for “building rules”.

Step 2: Understanding the base rules

From the 2012 G.O. (G.O.Ms.No.168), I was mainly interested in:

Required setbacks
Allowed building height for my plot size

I found these details on Page 9 of the document. That gave me the basic framework of what is allowed for my land category.

Note: At this stage, I was focusing only on what applies to plots in the 100–200 sq.m range.

Excerpt from the 2012 building rules showing setbacks and height table — Image 2 — Relevant page from G.O.Ms.168.

Step 3: Going through all amendments

Next, I went through all 12 amendments one by one to see which of them were relevant to my case.

Out of these, one stood out for my plot size:

G.O.Ms.No.7, dated 05/01/2016 — Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department — Amendments to Building Rules 2012 — Orders — Issued on 05/01/2016 — G.O.Ms.No.7

BuildNow listing highlighting G.O.Ms.7 amendment dated 05/01/2016 — Image 3 — The amendment that matters for 100–200 sq.m plots.

On Page 3, under Amendment 6, there was an important change for 100–200 sq.m land parcels:

Stilt floor was allowed

This mattered a lot to me because I wanted to have a stilt floor dedicated for parking.

Amendment 6 excerpt showing stilt floor allowed for 100–200 sq.m plots — Image 4 — Amendment 6: stilt floor allowed.

Finally

After going through:

The original 2012 Building Rules (G.O.Ms.No.168), and
The relevant 2016 amendment (G.O.Ms.No.7)

…I was clear about setbacks, height, and the parking floor.

My hope is that this post helps others who are also trying to figure out where to look for accurate and up-to-date building permit rules for Telangana/Hyderabad.

What’s next

In the building rules, there is a mention that the National Building Code (NBC) should also be complied with.

In one of my future posts, I plan to write about it.