Blue signs given the green signal in Lutyens’ Delhi

A senior NDMC official said preparatory work for the project was recently completed after approvals were secured from the council members of the civic body.

Lutyens’ Delhi is set to change colour ; all road signs in the 42.7 sq km part of the Capital that houses offices and residences of top functionaries and officials of the executive, legislature and judiciary are to now have a blue background, with white lettering, in keeping with norms laid down by the Indian Roads Congress, according to people familiar with the matter.

While signboards across Delhi are blue, those in the NDMC area are green, with names written in white in English, Hindi, Urdu and Gurmukhi (Hindustan Times)

According to the guidelines issued by the national body which prescribes design standards for roads, green signboards of the sort currently found in the area, which is under the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), are to be used only on state and national highways. The signboards in the NDMC area are green, with names written in white in English, Hindi, Urdu and Gurmukhi. The council will also rectify any mistakes and add around 100 new signs to indicate schools, hospitals and community spaces.

Other parts of Delhi, where roads come under the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and state Public Works Department (PWD), already have blue signboards. The project to install around 6,500 blue signboards is likely to cost around ₹18 crore and will begin in October.

A senior NDMC official said preparatory work for the project was recently completed after approvals were secured from the council members of the civic body.

“We will begin this project after the monsoon is over, around October, and the deadline of March 2026 has been fixed for its completion. We normally start the road repair works after the monsoon rains and this project is likely to be run in parallel with road re-carpeting and repair work,” the official added, asking not to be named.

NDMC manages 1,298km of roads in Central Delhi, along with 52 roundabouts where 6,439 road signs are currently in place. Apart from colour, some of these signboards also differ from those in the rest of the city in terms of shape; NDMC signboards are both circular and rectangular; in the rest of the city, the boards are rectangular. CHECK

The last major street sign replacement program was executed by the civic body in 2009-10 in the run up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Since then, many of the boards have faded.

NDMC vice chairman Kuljeet Chahal said that a series of initiatives are being taken by the council to improve the road infrastructure as well as street furniture in the New Delhi area under which signage will also be soon upgraded.

S Velmurugan, chief scientist and head of traffic engineering and safety division of Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), said that road signs, their colour and shapes play an important role in road safety and such glaring deviation should not have been allowed. “According to the Indian Road Congress (IRC) guidelines,signboards with blue background are meant for urban roads and green boards are used for state and national highways. There are no highways in the Lutyens’ Delhi area. The informatory signs are for making commuters aware that they are on a highway or in an urban environment.”

He added that rectangular signs are informative in nature and provide details like road names. The triangular signs are cautionary in nature and indicate upcoming curves or signals, and the circular signs are regulatory in nature. Besides colour, the replacement should also weed out other flaws.” Velumurgan said that normally the triangular and circular boards should have no coloured background as per IRC guidelines except in certain circumstances like construction zones and blue background in case of no parking zones.

A second NDMC official, aware of the matter, said that the survey of all signs in New Delhi was completed by the executive engineers of the road division in 2024 and an approval from the council was secured last year. “All signage in the NDMC area will be designed through a software for uniformity and consistency as per IRC guidelines.” He added that the corporation will reuse the frames of signs that are in good shape.

According to civic officials, the change was supposed to take place ahead of the G20 summit in 2023 but the project was delayed. In the annual budget for 2024-25, presented in December last year, the NDMC chairman stated that road signages were “installed mainly in 2009-10 with reflective sheets and have outlived their life.”

He added: “Indian Roads Congress has revised the specifications with reflective sheets. To achieve proper safety, it is proposed to replace road signages in the NDMC area in next 2024-25.”

The project has finally secured the green signal now.