Bhuj is a historic city, presently a C class city is the district head quarter of Kutch. The city surrounds a hillock known as Bhujia Hill with an old fort a top and has typical physical settings. The high-density historic city surrounded by walls was developed adjacent to the hillock with a manmade lake. In the 19th and 20th century, the city expanded towards south and east. Many of the landmark buildings built in the British Period are found scattered outside the historic old core city. Important buildings of tourist importance are Aina Mahal, Pragmahal Palace, the Sharad Baug Palace, Royal Cenotaphs (Chatris), Kutch Museum, Ethnology Museum and Bharatiya Sanskriti Darshan complex etc. Aina Mahal is a royal palace built in the 18th century while Pragmahal Palace was designed as an elegant Italianate palace. Kutch Museum is the oldest museum in Gujarat. Aina Mahal, Kutch Museum, Chatris have been major tourist attracting places, which have suffered severe damage during the earthquake of 2001.

An Urban Development Plan for Bhuj has been prepared and adopted through government procedures during the post earthquake reconstruction period. New development control regulations were formulated and adopted to support it.

Later on detailed land pooling schemes in the severely destroyed and congested old areas has been also prepared. Subsequently a massive up gradation of utility infrastructure with state of the art drinking water treatment and supply, underground sewerage system, roads development and up gradation, a new solid waste management system, new relocation colonies, etc has been carried out.

Implementation of the urban development plan and the town planning schemes and the urban infrastructure development project is substantially changing city’s physical appearance with wider roads, new earthquake resistant buildings and with opening up of huge amount of land for future development. Simultaneously a massive amount of investments has been injected in upgradation of social infrastructure facilities inclusive of few state of the art hospitals and newly constructed schools and colleges. A new Kutch University is also being established in the city which also has the potential of developing the city’s image as a centre of educational activities and research. With all these, Bhuj is undergoing a massive and unprecedented transformation creating a lot of tourism potential.

But poor traffic management and a lack of street level planning in the few of the older roads such as in the Bus Stand Road gives an anarchic and dirty impression of the city. Lack of landscaping, cycle and pedestrian friendly environment, greenery and recreational facilities are the major hurdles to portray the city as a very attractive tourist destination.