2026-09-26·Post

KMC Permission for Durga Puja: Fees, the 32 Conditions and the High Court Pandal Rules

Who issues the permission, and what it actually is

Puja permission in Kolkata is issued by the Borough Executive Engineer (Civil) of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, under the KMC Civil Engineering Department. It is a written letter, addressed to your committee, for one specific location and one specific set of dates. It is not a general licence, and it does not transfer to another street if you move the pandal.

The letter is the important part. The permission is granted “subject to compliance of the above conditions, failing which penal action will be taken against you” — and the conditions run to thirty-two numbered clauses. They are not fine print. Several of them decide the design of your pandal before a single bamboo is cut, and a few of them can cost you the deposit you put down.

The good news is that every one of them is knowable in advance. Nothing here is discretionary or unknowable. The bad news is that committees routinely discover these clauses in the second week of October, when the pandal is already half built and there is no time to change it.

Everything quoted in this guide — the letter, the fee schedule, the approved ghats and all thirty-two conditions — comes from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s own festive-season guidebook, which is linked in full at the end of this article. It is the primary source, and where this article and a rumour about the rules disagree, the guidebook wins.

What the application needs to contain

KMC administers the city borough-wise, so you apply to the borough office that covers your site — not to a central address, and not to the borough of your committee president. Get this wrong in July and you lose two weeks you do not have.

A complete application sets out:

Committee details — the name of the committee, the names and addresses of the office bearers, and who is the single point of contact for the season.
The exact location — the stretch of road, footpath or park, with its length and width in feet. A locality name is not a location. Engineers and inspectors will use this description to find you.
The dates — the days you intend to hold the puja, and separately the day you intend to immerse.
The pandal design — footprint and height. See the High Court rules below: the permitted superstructure height is capped, and a design that breaches the cap cannot be approved later by argument.
Stalls and structures — how many, and where in the pandal you intend to put them. Every stall needs separate permission and a temporary trade licence, and that is a separate application you make later.
Electricity — how the pandal will be lit. Note that you may not take any connection from a KMC lamp post or meter; the connection has to be from CESC.
Fire arrangements — what you will keep on standby. You also need clearance from the Fire Services Directorate, and this is where most committees discover a two-week delay they had not budgeted for.

Keep two copies. One stays with the committee secretary, one goes on the pandal notice board, because officers of the Health Department and the Borough Executive Engineer have the right to enter the pandal at any time to inspect — and being able to produce the letter immediately is the difference between a conversation and an argument.

What it costs

KMC publishes a fee schedule for issuing puja permission on its roads, footpaths and parks. The published figures are:

Durga Puja, including Lakshmi Puja: Rs. 2,500 as notification fee.
Other pujas — Jagadhatri, Kali and similar: Rs. 750.
Security deposit, for a puja held in a park or square: Rs. 1,000, in addition to the notification fee. This is refundable on completion of the puja if no damage is caused to KMC assets.
Dolna, merry-go-round, stalls and similar installations: separate charges, as per the KMC budget volume in force.
Banners and hoardings: separate charges, paid to the KMC Advertisement Department.

Two of those deserve more attention than they get. The security deposit is refundable only if no damage is done to KMC assets — and the conditions specifically list Corporation trees, park assets, urinals and sheds. So a committee that trims a branch or scratches a park railing can forfeit Rs. 1,000 over a decision that felt minor at the time. If your pandal is in a park, photograph the trees, the assets and the surrounding pavement on the day you take possession, and keep the photographs in the committee file. It is the cheapest dispute prevention available.

And the stall charges are a separate budget line, not a rounding error inside the pandal cost. A committee that plans twenty stalls in a park and applies for permission in August will not have those stalls approved and licensed by Shasthi. Decide early, or plan for fewer.

Fees are revised. Confirm the current figures with your borough office before you build a budget on them.

The High Court pandal rules you must design around

Clause 31 of the permission letter reproduces construction guidelines issued by the Hon’ble High Court, Kolkata. These are the numbers that decide whether your design is legal, and they are the first thing to check before you finalise anything.

Roads 15 ft wide: keep a 4 ft passage free.
Roads 15 ft to 30 ft wide: keep a 6 ft passage free.
Roads wider than 30 ft: keep a 10 ft passage free.
Four feet clear on all four sides of any house, wall of a premises, or permanent construction.
Superstructure height must not exceed 40 ft in any case. This is the cap that ends most ambitious designs, and it is a hard limit, not a guideline.
Entry and exit gates must be made so that instant measures can be taken freely in case of fire or other exigency.
Minimum width of entry and exit gates: 12/14 ft. The guideline itself writes the figure this way, which is a useful sanity check — if your gates are 8 ft wide, they are wrong under any reading.
The entry gate must admit fire tenders easily without hindrance. A gate that opens inward, or that has a step up into it, or that is blocked by a curtain of decoration, fails this.
No fire or cooking arrangement within 200 ft of the main pandal. The guideline words this as “200 gauges”; a gauge is a foot.
Keep on standby: sufficient quantities of water, buckets full of sand, and fire extinguishers.
Only permitted materials may be used in constructing the pandal.

Three practical consequences. First, on a narrow street your pandal is much smaller than you think, and the clear passage is measured from the road width, not from the property line. Second, the 40 ft cap is measured to the top of the superstructure, not to the sanctum roof — a tall facade counts. Third, the 200 ft no-cooking rule is a distance, not a fire-safety measure you can substitute with an extinguisher.

Fire, access and the space you are actually allowed to use

These clauses are the ones that are checked on the ground, usually by more than one department.

You must leave a 12 ft passage for entry and exit of fire tenders. Where the site gives you no opportunity to keep a 12 ft passage, the organisers must take the initiative to prevent fire themselves — which in practice means a written fire plan, fire-fighting equipment, and a named person responsible for it.
No obstruction to traffic, and 12 ft of width must be kept for vehicular traffic and firefighting.
You must obtain clearance from the Fire Services Directorate regarding arrangements for prevention of fire. This is a separate approval from KMC permission, and it is on the critical path of your build schedule.
75% of the allotted space within the pandal must be reserved for visitors and fire brigade movement. This is a capacity rule as much as a safety rule — if you plan a 400-person pandal inside a space that only holds 300, the crowd control is yours to solve, on the busiest nights of the season.
50% of carriageways must be kept open for traffic. Not parked over, not stacked with bamboo, not used for storage. Half the road, all night, every night.
A proper circulation path for visitors must be maintained within parks.

Money, stalls and the public

No gate money or fee may be collected from visitors. Admission to a public puja is free.
No rent may be collected from stall holders without KMC permission.
No advertisement may be placed in the pandal or adjacent to it without KMC permission and the necessary fee. Commercial sponsorship on a pandal wall is not a grey area; it needs permission and it costs.
No banners or hoardings within 50 m of a road crossing, on payment of the Advertisement Department’s charges. Note this is a different distance from the other clauses — it is a traffic-sightline rule.
No stall within the pandal or the adjoining road and footpath, without permission. A temporary trade licence for each stall is issued separately by the KMC Licence Department.
You need a separate licence from the KMC Amusement Department for holding cultural functions, in addition to the approval of the police authority.
No cooking or catering within 50 m of the pandal. This is a separate clause from the High Court’s 200 ft no-fire rule, and the two distances are not the same figure. Treat the stricter reading as the one that is enforced.
Melas and stalls must not be extended beyond the last date of immersion of the festival.
The pandal must be removed immediately after immersion. This is unconditional, and a standing pandal is a liability on a street that has to be handed back.
Electric merry-go-rounds and giant wheels are described as “not desirable” considering pilgrim safety. If you want one, you must submit a safety certificate issued by RITES or MECONS, and give a written declaration that the organisers will be responsible for any eventuality and will take all precautions during congregation. That declaration is signed by a named person, and it is a real personal exposure.

KMC property, the environment and public health

Corporation trees must not be trimmed or damaged. You are not permitted to prune a branch to make room for your pandal, however much it is in the way. Ask the Parks department; do not cut.
No obstruction or damage to assets within Corporation parks, urinals and sheds.
Flowers and leaves offered must be deposited in a separate container or enclosure at the immersion ghat, before the idols are immersed. This is both a river-protection rule and the reason your committee needs a container on site and someone assigned to it.
Follow the West Bengal Pollution Control Board restrictions on plastic carry bags, and its restrictions on noise levels in different places during the festival season.
Make special arrangements for physically handicapped visitors so they can visit without hassle. A ramped entry and a clear route is the whole of it, and it is a condition, not a courtesy.
Abide by the guidelines of the Pollution Control Board, CESC, the West Bengal Fire Service and Kolkata Police in addition to the conditions above.
Sanitary and conservancy arrangements must be to the satisfaction of the Borough Executive Health Officer or the Assistant Director (SWM). This is the clause that decides your daily cleaning manpower, your dustbin count and your wash-up arrangements for five days.
Authorised officers of the Health Department and the Borough Executive Engineer may enter the occupied area for inspection at any time.

Immersion: the dates and the ghats

Immersion is not part of your KMC permission as such. It is separately notified by the police authority, and the clause is explicit: immersion of the goddess Durga is allowed on the notified dates, subject to the approval of the police authority, and the same applies to Lakshmi Puja and Kali Puja on their own notified dates.

KMC lists the approved ghats as the designated ghats of the river Hooghly along the following stretches:

Behala — Parnasree
Jadavpur — Katjunagar, Layalka, Ranikuthi, Patuli
Kasba — Vibeknagar Jhil, Kayastapara, Ramtagori
Metiaburj — Bichalighat, Rajabagan
Nadial — Sisu Udayan, Matsajibi, Kanchanghat, Burning Ghat (Kalibari)
Purba Jadavpur — Mukundapur
Regent Park — Tripuraswari Pukur, Kaliganga, Pirpukur, Adi Ganga
Thakurpukur — Motilal Gupta Road, Sarsuna Jadab Ghosh, Sarsuna Township, Chatterjee Pukur, Dharapar 1 No. Pukur, 5 No. Pukur
Tiljala — V.I.P.

For 2026, Vijaya Dashami falls on Wednesday 21 October. In the pattern KMC has used, immersion is permitted from Dashami through the following two days, which would put the window at 21 to 23 October. Treat that as an expectation, not a notice — the police notification for the season is the authority, and your local police station will have it. The dates for the whole season are on our Durga Puja dates page.

Two practical notes for visarjan night. Plan the crane, the barge or the van, the manpower and the road closure together, because immersion is where the 50%-carriageway rule and the police notification collide. And keep the ghat container for flowers and leaves staffed until the idols are in the water, not just until the procession leaves.

A timeline that does not collapse in October

June – July: committee formed, site chosen, pandal footprint and height fixed against the High Court rules, written budget approved. See our guide to running a puja committee for the committee side of this.
July – August: application to the borough office. Do this before you have built anything. CESC application for the pandal connection.
August: Fire Services Directorate clearance. Police application for traffic and immersion.
September: stall decisions taken and temporary trade licence applications. Advertisement Department approval for any banner or hoarding, keeping 50 m clear of any road crossing. Amusement Department licence if there are cultural functions.
October: permission letter displayed on the notice board. Sanitation and conservancy manpower in place from day one. Water, sand buckets and extinguishers positioned and checked daily. Access ramp and clear route for disabled visitors. Pandal removed immediately after immersion.
After immersion: street handed back clear, the site inspected for damage, and the deposit refund claimed if nothing was damaged. The account published — our budget guide covers why this matters for next year.

Eight mistakes that cost a committee money or the pandal

Applying late. Permission that arrives after fabrication has started cannot be backdated, and a pandal on a road you do not have permission for is an encroachment.
Designing before measuring. The 4/6/10 ft clear-passage rule and the 40 ft cap are set by the street, not by your drawing. A design that ignores them has to be rebuilt.
Taking power from a KMC lamp post. Explicitly prohibited. The connection is from CESC.
Putting up stalls to cover a budget gap. A stall inside the pandal without permission and a trade licence is an unauthorised structure, and the money from it is not yours to keep.
Putting a sponsor banner up and sorting the permission later. Advertising in or next to the pandal needs permission and a fee, and hoardings have their own 50 m road-crossing rule.
Trimming a park tree. Damaged Corporation trees mean the deposit is not refunded, and the condition is listed explicitly.
Leaving the pandal up after immersion. A non-negotiable condition, and one that turns neighbours into complainants.
Booking the amusement ride late. A safety certificate from RITES or MECONS is a lead-time item, and the written declaration attaches personal responsibility to a named organiser.

One honest caveat

This guide is based on the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s own published festive-season guidebook, which sets out the permission letter, the fee schedule, the approved immersion ghats and the 32 conditions. Structures and clause numbering are KMC’s. Fees, notified dates, approved ghats and specific conditions are revised between seasons, and the Corporation’s own department arrangements change — so read this as the complete framework, and confirm the current numbers, dates and clause text with your borough office before you commit money or build. Your Borough Executive Engineer (Civil) is the authority on your application, and there is no substitute for asking them early.

Once the permission is in hand, the rest of the season is execution. Our day-by-day plan turns the calendar into dated tasks, and if you are deciding what kind of puja to run first, start with what a sarbojanin barowari puja actually is.

Sources

Kolkata Municipal Corporation — festive season guidebook. The primary source for this article. It contains the full puja permission letter with all 32 conditions, the fee schedule, the High Court pandal guidelines, the approved immersion ghats and the department-wise festive arrangements: kmcgov.in/KMCPortal/downloads/GuideBook.pdf
Kolkata Municipal Corporation main portal — current fees, current notifications, and borough office contacts: kmcgov.in

The clause text, the passage widths, the 40 ft height cap and the fee figures quoted above come from that guidebook, which is the KMC document of record for the season it covers. Because it is a specific season’s publication, treat the numbers as the framework and confirm current figures with your Borough Executive Engineer (Civil) before you commit money. Nothing here is legal advice, and the Corporation’s own current instructions always take precedence over this summary.

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