Elemental Cost Planning under NRM in Indian Practice

RICS NRM 1 reached its 3rd edition in October 2021, and it requires every capital cost plan to carry the same seventeen constituents, including four separate client risk allowances and two separate inflation cost targets, measured against group elements 0 to 14. India's public-sector ladder runs on a different axis: General Financial Rules 2017 Rule 136 fixes seven preconditions before a work may start, the Department of Expenditure's Manual for Procurement of Works (Second Edition, 2025) puts a plinth-area rough cost at the front, and the CPWD Works Manual 2022 carries it to a detailed estimate priced sub-head by sub-head from the Delhi Schedule of Rates. This report sets out what each system demands at each stage, where the two genuinely conflict — plinth area is not GIFA, a contingency is not a risk allowance, and the phrase "cost plan" appears nowhere in the CPWD Works Manual 2022 — and how a concept estimate is honestly restated as an elemental plan.

Part of AECS Research Global's publications programme — drawing on ARG's work across cost management, EPC advisory and integrated project delivery. Download the full report below.