'Only 90 of Delhi's 1,000 hotels and clubs have a valid fire safety NOC'

Only 52 hotels and 38 clubs out of the roughly 1,000 licensed hotels, clubs and restaurants in Delhi currently hold a no-objection certificate (NOC) for fire safety from the Delhi Fire Services (DFS), officials aware of the matter said on Monday - a gap that fire experts warn leaves hundreds of establishments operating without mandatory safety checks.

- Karn Pratap Singh and Hemani Bhandari

Delhi has around 1,000 licensed hospitality establishments, according to 2024 excise department data accessed by HT, the latest available.

To be sure, the current total number of hotels and clubs in the Capital as of December 2025 could not be ascertained despite repeated queries to the relevant departments of the Delhi government.

In the aftermath of the fire at a nightclub in Goa's Aprora that claimed 25 lives, fire safety experts on Monday flagged a serious gap in Delhi's fire NOC norms -- once the fire department issues an NOC, which is valid for three years, subsequent violations often go unchecked because agencies are not mandated to conduct interim inspections.