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Delhi Crime & Justice · Forensic Infrastructure

Delhi to Get Rs 152 Cr Regional Forensic Lab by 2028

The Delhi government's Expenditure Finance Committee has cleared a Regional Forensic Science Laboratory at Sheikh Sarai in South Delhi, with an approved cost reported at Rs 151.81 crore and a two-year construction target set by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. The facility is meant to add scientific-investigation capacity alongside the overburdened FSL at Rohini, but how much it changes turnaround times will depend on questions the approval itself does not yet answer.

What Has Been Announced?

On 12 September 2026, Delhi's Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) — chaired by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta — approved the construction of a new Regional Forensic Science Laboratory (RFSL) at Sheikh Sarai in South Delhi. According to the statement issued by the Chief Minister's Office and carried by multiple news agencies, the approved project cost is Rs 151.81 crore, and the Public Works Department (PWD) has been given a target of completing construction within two years of the approval — placing the expected completion window around 2028.

On the headline figure: This report's title uses the commonly rounded figure of "Rs 152 crore." The precise, officially reported sanctioned cost — as stated by the Delhi government and reported uniformly by ANI, IANS, and other wire services — is Rs 151.81 crore. The two figures refer to the same approval; the difference is rounding, not a discrepancy between sources. Similarly, no government statement reviewed for this report names "2028" as a fixed calendar deadline — the government's own language is a "two-year" construction target from the September 2026 approval, which lands in the 2028 window.

₹151.81 CrApproved project cost

6,300 m²Plot area

18,300 m²Built-up area

2 yrsPWD construction target

Where Will the New Regional FSL Come Up?

The laboratory is planned for Sheikh Sarai in South Delhi, on a plot of approximately 6,300 square metres, with a total built-up area of about 18,300 square metres. The government has described it as an "integrated forensic facility" designed around the specialised requirements of scientific evidence examination, to be constructed by the PWD. Officials say the new RFSL will primarily serve the South, South-East, and Central Delhi police districts, while also reinforcing the scientific capacity of Delhi's existing central forensic facility at Rohini.

This is not the first time a forensic facility has been proposed for this address. Court records from 2015 show the Delhi High Court directing the Delhi government to expedite long-pending FSL projects at Sheikh Sarai and Rohini, alongside two other planned regional labs at Sayurpur (Mehrauli) and Rohini Sector 21/23 — projects that were, at the time, held up by land and clearance issues involving the PWD, the Delhi Development Authority, and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. The 2026 approval effectively revives a location that has been on Delhi's forensic-infrastructure wish list for well over a decade, which is useful context for weighing how firm the current two-year target is likely to prove.

What Will the ₹151.81 Crore Project Include?

The government's public statement describes the Sheikh Sarai facility only in general terms — a PWD-constructed building on the stated plot and built-up area, developed as an "integrated forensic facility." The available official information does not yet specify a category-wise financial breakdown (construction versus laboratory fit-out, versus scientific instrumentation, versus IT or evidence-storage infrastructure), nor has a full list of forensic divisions the Sheikh Sarai lab will house been officially published.

What can be said with more confidence is the administrative trail behind the number. A Home Ministry-linked wire report from August 2026 — reporting on a visit by Delhi Home Minister Ashish Sood to the Rohini FSL — described the Sheikh Sarai project at that stage as a "pilot project for the future expansion of forensic science support in the NCT of Delhi," for which the PWD had submitted a Preliminary Estimate to the government. That estimate appears to be what the EFC formally cleared in September. Separately, Delhi's Budget 2026-27 documents had earlier listed a token allocation of Rs 2 crore against a Sheikh Sarai RFSL line item — standard practice for a scheme awaiting full cost approval, and not itself the project's total sanctioned cost. Readers should not confuse that early budget line with the Rs 151.81 crore figure now approved by the EFC; they represent two different stages of the same file.

Why Does Delhi Need Another Forensic Laboratory?

Delhi's forensic examinations have, for three decades, been concentrated in a single major facility: the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) at Rohini, established during the 8th Five Year Plan and inaugurated in 1995. Successive Lieutenant Governors have flagged pendency at this laboratory as a recurring problem — in 2022, for instance, the LG's office recorded more than 20,000 pending cases and pushed for staffing and technological upgrades.

The most recent official figures, shared by Home Minister Sood during an FSL visit reported in August 2026, show real movement on that backlog: critical case pendency at FSL Rohini fell by 72 percent, from 27,585 cases in June 2025 to 7,178 cases as of 31 July 2026, with 3,49,519 exhibits disposed of over the preceding twelve months. Pendency in POCSO-related cases fell from 800 to 77 over roughly the same period. Officials attributed this to recruitment of 247 contract scientific staff, extended working hours, weekend shifts, and workflow optimisation — administrative and staffing measures, not new infrastructure.

That reduction matters for how the Sheikh Sarai project should be read. The government's own framing for the new RFSL is not primarily "clearing an existing backlog" — which recent data suggests is already being worked down through non-infrastructure measures — but meeting a structural rise in future demand. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, which replaced India's colonial-era criminal codes, expanded the categories of offences requiring mandatory forensic examination and crime-scene videography. The government's statement explicitly cites this legal shift as the driver for the new facility, and describes Sheikh Sarai as complementary to Rohini rather than a replacement for it.

What we cannot verify: No official or credible source reviewed for this report provides current pendency, workload, or turnaround-time figures specific to South, South-East, or Central Delhi districts in isolation — the pendency data above is laboratory-wide, not district-wise. Claims about a specific caseload figure for the districts the new RFSL is meant to serve are not available and are not asserted here.

What Could the New Facility Mean for Forensic Investigations?

Separating confirmed objectives from potential future benefit matters here.

Confirmed project objective (stated by government)	Potential future benefit (not yet demonstrated)
Add a second major forensic facility to meet demand created by the new criminal codes	Faster forensic report turnaround for South/South-East/Central Delhi cases
Reinforce, not replace, scientific support currently centred at Rohini	Reduced pressure on Rohini's caseload once Sheikh Sarai is operational
Construct a PWD building of ~18,300 sq m built-up area within two years	Higher conviction rates or faster trial disposal in South Delhi courts

The government's own language — that the facility "will help" meet demand and "will strengthen" scientific support — is aspirational and forward-looking, appropriate for a project still at the construction-approval stage. It is not, and should not be read as, a guarantee of specific case-level outcomes.

A Modern FSL Is More Than a Building

It is worth stating plainly what a Rs 151.81 crore approval does and does not buy. A forensic laboratory's actual capability rests on the interaction of several layers: physical infrastructure, trained scientific personnel, calibrated and validated instrumentation, documented and quality-controlled methods, secure evidence-management and chain-of-custody systems, and the interpretive competence of examiners who ultimately testify in court. Construction spending addresses only the first of these directly.

This distinction is not academic. Delhi's own recent experience illustrates it: the sharpest recent improvement in Rohini's pendency came not from a new building but from staffing and workflow changes — 247 contract scientific staff, extended hours, and process optimisation. A new building at Sheikh Sarai will still need its own complement of trained scientific officers, its own instrumentation (DNA analysers, GC-MS systems for toxicology, comparison microscopes, digital forensic workstations, and so on, depending on which divisions are eventually housed there), and its own standard operating procedures before it can process a single case. None of that has been officially detailed yet for this facility.

Quality Assurance: The Missing Part of the Infrastructure Debate

Forensic evidence carries legal weight in Indian courts only to the extent that it is scientifically reliable — and reliability is a function of quality systems, not square footage. The existing Rohini laboratory has held accreditation from the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) under ISO/IEC 17025 since 2008, and this accreditation was reportedly extended for a further four years alongside a one-year extension of its International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation Mutual Recognition Arrangement (ILAC-MRA) status, as noted during the Home Minister's August 2026 visit.

The available official information does not yet specify whether or on what timeline the new Sheikh Sarai facility will pursue NABL accreditation, what quality management system it will operate under, or how method validation and proficiency testing will be organised once the building is complete. These are not minor administrative footnotes — they are what separates "a laboratory that exists" from "a laboratory whose reports can withstand cross-examination." Building a structure and building a scientifically defensible forensic laboratory are related but distinct undertakings, and the gap between them is typically measured in years, not months.

What the Project Could Mean for Delhi Police

Delhi Police is not the administrative owner of either the Rohini FSL or the planned Sheikh Sarai RFSL — both fall under the Home Department of the Government of NCT of Delhi, a structure in place since FSL Delhi's administrative control was transferred from Delhi Police to the Home Department in December 1995. Delhi Police remains the principal user of the laboratory's services, submitting evidence for examination in criminal cases. A second, geographically closer facility could, in principle, reduce the time and logistical overhead of transporting evidence from South, South-East, and Central Delhi police stations to a single central lab — but no official source has published projected turnaround-time improvements specific to this project, and this report does not manufacture one.

What It Could Mean for Courts and Scientific Evidence

Faster forensic reporting could, in principle, help address one contributor to trial delay in criminal cases where scientific evidence is pending. But a larger laboratory does not automatically mean stronger evidence. The evidentiary value of a forensic report still depends on the quality of the sample collected at the crime scene, the validity of the method used to analyse it, the competence and independence of the examiner's interpretation, and the completeness of documentation supporting the chain of custody. Infrastructure expansion addresses capacity — it does not, by itself, address these interpretive and procedural dimensions of forensic reliability. This report does not offer legal advice on how courts should weigh forensic evidence; that determination remains a judicial one, made case by case.

How the Project Fits India's Larger Forensic Expansion

The Sheikh Sarai project sits alongside — but is administratively distinct from — the Union government's National Forensic Infrastructure Enhancement Scheme (NFIES). NFIES is a Central Sector Scheme approved by the Union Cabinet in June 2024, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, with a total outlay of Rs 2,254.43 crore for the period 2024-25 to 2028-29. It funds new campuses of the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) and new Central Forensic Science Laboratories (CFSLs) — a central-government funding stream distinct from a Delhi state government (GNCTD) capital project cleared through the Delhi EFC.

No official source reviewed for this report establishes that the Delhi Sheikh Sarai project is funded under NFIES. The two initiatives share a common cause — the increased forensic-examination requirements of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and related laws — but they run on separate budgets, separate approving authorities (Union Cabinet/MHA for NFIES; Delhi's EFC for Sheikh Sarai), and separate laboratory networks (Central FSLs under the Directorate of Forensic Science Services versus Delhi's state-run FSL system).

What We Know — and What Is Still Unclear

Confirmed

• EFC approval on/around 12 September 2026, chaired by CM Rekha Gupta
• Approved cost: Rs 151.81 crore
• Location: Sheikh Sarai, South Delhi
• Plot ~6,300 sq m; built-up area ~18,300 sq m
• Executing agency: PWD, GNCTD
• Two-year construction target set by the Chief Minister
• Purpose: meet forensic-examination demand under BNS/BNSS/BSA; supplement, not replace, Rohini FSL
• Target districts: South, South-East, Central Delhi

Not Yet Clear

• Exact fixed completion date/calendar year (only a "two-year" target has been stated)
• Category-wise breakdown of the Rs 151.81 crore spend
• Specific forensic divisions the Sheikh Sarai lab will house
• Planned staffing numbers and recruitment timeline
• Accreditation and quality-system roadmap for the new facility
• Any formal link to NFIES or other central funding (none established)
• Whether land acquisition/clearances — historically the cause of delay at this site — are fully resolved

What Happens Between Construction and a Working Forensic Laboratory?

Completion of the PWD's building work is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the Sheikh Sarai RFSL to function as a forensic laboratory. Based on how forensic facilities are typically commissioned in India and elsewhere, the sequence after handover generally includes: procurement and installation of scientific instrumentation; recruitment and training of scientific officers; development and validation of standard operating procedures for each discipline the lab will handle; internal quality control and, eventually, external proficiency testing; and — for full standing before courts — pursuit of NABL/ISO 17025 accreditation, a process that itself typically takes a further period after a laboratory becomes physically operational. None of these post-construction steps have been officially scheduled or costed for Sheikh Sarai as of this writing. A two-year construction target, in other words, is not the same as a two-year timeline to a fully validated, court-ready forensic laboratory.

What This Could Mean for Delhi Residents

For an ordinary resident, a forensic laboratory's relevance is rarely abstract. It surfaces when a family is waiting for a DNA match to identify remains, when a suspicious-substance case needs chemical analysis before charges can proceed, when a disputed document needs examination in a property or fraud case, or when digital evidence needs scientific scrutiny before it can be relied on in court. A second forensic facility serving South, South-East, and Central Delhi could potentially shorten the physical and administrative distance between an investigating officer and a laboratory for residents of those districts. Whether it actually shortens the time a family waits for a report will depend on staffing, instrumentation, and workload once the facility opens — factors this report has flagged as still undetermined — so that outcome is described here as a possibility, not a promise.

Conclusion: Delhi's Next Forensic Challenge Is Not Just Building a Laboratory

The Rs 151.81 crore EFC approval for a Regional Forensic Science Laboratory at Sheikh Sarai is a concrete, officially confirmed step — the clearest one this long-delayed project has taken since it first appeared in Delhi's forensic-infrastructure plans over a decade ago. It responds to a real and documented pressure: new criminal codes that widen the scope of mandatory forensic examination, layered onto a forensic system that has historically run on a single major laboratory. But the approval answers an infrastructure question, not a capability question. Delhi's own recent record — a 72 percent cut in FSL Rohini's pendency achieved largely through staffing and workflow changes rather than new buildings — is itself evidence that construction and capability are not the same lever. Whether Sheikh Sarai becomes a facility that measurably speeds up Delhi's criminal investigations, or one more building whose usefulness is decided later by staffing, instrumentation, and accreditation choices not yet made public, is a story this project has not yet finished telling.

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Sources & Further Reading

• ANI, "Delhi to get new Regional Forensic Science Laboratory in Sheikh Sarai at Rs 151.81 crore," 12 September 2026 — aninews.in. Supports: approval date, approving body, cost figure, PWD timeline.
• IANS / The Hans India, "Modern Rs 151 crore forensic lab to be built in Sheikh Sarai: Delhi CM Rekha Gupta," 13 September 2026 — thehansindia.com. Supports: plot/built-up area, districts served, Home Minister's statement, legal-reform rationale.
• The Pioneer, "Rs 151 crore forensic science lab approved at Sheikh Sarai" — dailypioneer.com. Supports: EFC approval, cost figure.
• The Hans India, "New forensic science lab to be built at Sheikh Sarai in 2 years: CM Gupta," 13 September 2026 — millenniumpost.in. Supports: two-year construction target, CM's statement on forensic science's role in justice delivery.
• UNI (United News of India), "Minister Sood inspects Delhi FSL, appreciates reduction in case pendency," 8 August 2026 — uniindia.com. Supports: Rohini FSL pendency data, NABL/ILAC-MRA accreditation status, Sheikh Sarai project's pre-EFC "pilot project"/Preliminary Estimate status.
• Forensic Science Laboratory, Delhi (Government of NCT of Delhi), official website — fsl.delhi.gov.in. Supports: FSL Rohini's founding history, administrative transfer to Home Department, NABL accreditation since 2008, ISO/IEC 17025 status.
• Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, "National Forensic Infrastructure Enhancement Scheme (NFIES)" — mha.gov.in. Supports: NFIES outlay, components, and implementation period, used to establish that it is a separate central scheme from the Delhi state project.
• Business Standard, "Centre dragging feet on appointing more cops," 29 July 2015 — business-standard.com. Supports: 2015 Delhi High Court directive on Sheikh Sarai and Rohini FSL projects, historical delay context.
• Budding Forensic Expert, "Delhi to Get New Regional Forensic Science Laboratory in Sheikh Sarai," 25 March 2026 — buddingforensicexpert.in. Supports: earlier Rs 2 crore Budget 2026-27 line-item allocation, used here only to distinguish that early figure from the now-approved Rs 151.81 crore project cost.
• LG Delhi (Lieutenant Governor's Secretariat), "Pendency in cases at Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) is not acceptable: LG," 22 June 2022 — lg.delhi.gov.in. Supports: historical pendency figures (20,000+ cases) and staffing concerns at FSL Rohini.