***** UPDATED ON 24 Sept 2021 ******
By Circular No CBSE/AFF./Notification/2021 dated 24.09.2021, the land requirement of 4000 square meters located in Municipal Authorities of cities with population exceeding 15 lakhs, the population limit has been changed to 10 lakhs.
Smaller cities that have a population of over 10 lakhs can now make a CBSE affiliated school in 4000 sq meters.
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***** UPDATED ON 04 Aug 2020 ******
By Circular No CBSE/AFF/Bye_Laws_2018/2020 dated 04.08.2020, Greater Mumbai has been added to the list of Class-X cities.
This means that schools affiliated till Class X can be made on 2000 sq mtrs and till Class XII on 3000 sq mtrs in Greater Mumbai.
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***** UPDATED ON 10 JAN 2020 ******
Vide circular No 01/2020 dated 20 Jan 2020, CBSE has added 2 new subclauses to the Affiliation Bye-laws that effect the land requirements. The specific 2 clauses are:
Clause 3.4.8 for schools located in areas under the Development of Authorities of 04 metropolitan cities of Chennai, Delhi, Kolkatta and Mumbai,
Clause 3.4.9 for schools located in territorial limits of Union Territories.
This means that schools in the above two areas can now be made on lands of 4000 sq meters.
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CBSE Affiliation Byelaws 2018 – Land & Capacity Requirements
In the new CBSE Affiliation Byelaws released on 18 Oct 2018, there are some changes in the land requirements for setting up an affiliated school in India. Chapter 3 of the Byelaws defines the land requirements.
The norms specific the minimum requirement for setting up a Secondary School (upto Class X) or a Senior Secondary School (upto Class XII). The optimum number of sections that a school can operate are also defined based on the size of available land, in Appendix V.
The word “optimum” used while mentioning the number of sections leaves some ambiguity – it is neither maximum nor does it sound binding. Similarly, section 4.8 says that the optimum number of students shall be 40 in each section. It is fair to assume that by using the word optimum, the Board is trying to restrict the number to be maximum, except probably in rare cases of some existing schools.
Here is a table detailing the land requirements based on location of the school, the type of affiliation allowed and the number of sections that can be operated:
[table id=3]