Designing a Hotel or Resort in Haryana: Site, Budget & Guest Experience

How does the site decide a hotel or resort strategy?

A highway property on NH9 (the Delhi, Rohtak and Hisar road many still call by its old number, NH10) lives on visibility, easy turn-in and generous parking: the building is a landmark first and an interior second. A resort on the edge of town trades on arrival and landscape. The site decides whether you lead with a bold roadside form or a slow, planted approach; getting that wrong at the concept stage is expensive to correct later.

The land-use position decides even more. A site in an agriculture zone needs change of land use (CLU) permission, and the size bands Haryana announced in August 2021 for hospitality CLU fix what can be built before any brief does. The floor area ratio (FAR) attached to each band caps the total built area: at FAR 1, a hotel can build roughly as much floor area as it has land. Confirm current figures with the Director, Town and Country Planning (DTCP) before buying; these policies get amended.

How many rooms, covers and banquet seats does a hotel need?

Every hospitality project is an equation between built area and keys: rooms, covers, banqueting capacity. Before any mood board, the plan must prove the numbers the investment needs: the right room count at the right size, a banquet hall that seats the weddings the region books, and dining that turns over. Styling never rescues a building that is fundamentally short on capacity.

Work the mix from who actually arrives. A highway property in this part of Haryana typically sells to families stopping for a meal, wedding parties who take the banquet hall and a block of rooms for a night, and travellers who need a clean room and an early breakfast. That argues for rooms that can be sold together as a wedding block, a few larger family rooms or suites, and dining and banqueting sized for the season's biggest bookings.

If you intend to seek a star classification from the Ministry of Tourism, check its current guidelines for minimum room and bathroom sizes before the structural grid is fixed. A grid that misses the minimum by a few inches cannot be corrected later.

What goes into the back of house, and why does it matter?

Guests should move effortlessly (arrival, reception, rooms, dining, banqueting) while staff, kitchens, laundry and services run on a parallel network that never crosses the guest's path. The unglamorous back-of-house planning is what separates a hotel that feels smooth from one that feels chaotic on a busy night.

Owners usually underestimate how much space this takes. The list we plan from:

• 01A service entry and goods yard away from guest arrival, with room for a truck to turn.
• 02Receiving, dry stores, cold rooms and a waste room beside it.
• 03One main kitchen placed to serve both the restaurant and the banquet hall without trolleys crossing the lobby.
• 04Linen and laundry, housekeeping stores on each room floor, and a service lift or stair.
• 05A staff entry, change rooms, toilets and a staff dining space.
• 06Plant: the electrical room, DG set, water treatment and sewage treatment, downwind and away from rooms.

How should a banquet hall be designed in Haryana?

In this region, the banquet and wedding business often underwrites the whole property. That means column-free spans where possible, a pre-function and dining sequence that handles hundreds without bottlenecks, dedicated parking and entries, and services sized for peak load. Design the banqueting for the biggest night, not the average one.

Haryana's Urban Local Bodies policy for regularising existing marriage palaces and banquet halls, proposed in 2024, is a useful checklist of what the state expects of a hall, even on a new build: doors and exits at least 1.8 m wide that open outwards; a kitchen that opens into the hall only through self-closing doors with at least one hour of fire resistance; at least two gates, each 6 m wide; no direct entry from a national or state highway without the competent authority's NOC; and parking on at least 25 per cent of the site, with no cars on the road. Design to those from day one.

At King's Haveli on NH9, the banquet and party halls turn inward for weddings that run late, while the dining rooms sit against glazed walls and green edges so daytime meals feel like verandah sittings.

What approvals does a highway hotel or dhaba need in Haryana?

Approvals run for months, so map them before the concept is final. The sequence we plan around:

• 01Land use: CLU from DTCP for a site in an agriculture zone of a controlled area, or a zoning check for any other site.
• 02Highway access: access permission under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways' access guidelines, which NHAI applies on its stretches. NHAI says this is the only permission it grants for access to a property; building and control lines along the road follow IRC 73 and state rules.
• 03Building plans: sanction from DTCP or the municipal body, depending on location.
• 04Fire: a fire NOC under the Haryana Fire and Emergency Services Act, 2022. Under a policy notified in December 2025, certificates are issued online on the strength of a certification report from an empanelled agency, so the fire design must be complete and documented.
• 05Groundwater: hotels, restaurants and dhabas need permission from the Haryana Water Resources Authority to draw groundwater; micro and small enterprises drawing less than 10 cubic metres a day register instead.
• 06Pollution: consent from the Haryana State Pollution Control Board, whose consent management covers hotels, motels, dhabas and banquet halls; establishments without consent to operate have been sealed. Confirm early which consents your category and size need, since some apply before construction starts.
• 07Operations: FSSAI registration or a licence for the kitchens, and an excise licence if liquor is served; our restaurant and bar design guide covers both.

Which materials suit a hotel in Haryana's climate?

Hospitality buildings live harder lives than homes: heat, dust, huge footfall, functions that run late. Robust materials that weather into character, deep shading, and a structure that doubles as the finish (fair-faced concrete, brick, stone) deliver dignity on a real-world budget without constant maintenance.

Outdoor rooms earn their keep here. At Milan's, an NH9 dhaba now being built to our design, the heart of the scheme is an open-air night court with steel pergolas, festoon lamps, a mosaic fountain and stone underfoot, which moves highway dining from the roadside into a garden.