Jaali Design for Home: Balcony, Doors and Partitions

The right jaali design for a home depends first on where it goes. Indoors, a CNC-cut jaali in MDF, HDHMR, PVC, WPC, acrylic, wood or metal makes a partition, a mandir front or a door panel; outdoors, on a balcony, a stair or the front elevation, use brick, terracotta, concrete or GRC blocks, stone, or laser-cut steel, because those survive sun and rain. Then choose the pattern by how much of it is hole: that open share decides how much light, air and view come through.

On price, CPWD's Delhi schedule puts honeycomb brick jaali at about ₹66 per sq ft built, and a 25 mm precast concrete jali at about ₹143 per sq ft fixed. Online listings put terracotta blocks alone at roughly ₹80 to ₹130 per sq ft and MS laser cutting at ₹100 to ₹280 per sq ft.

About the numbers below: schedule rates are from the CPWD Delhi Schedule of Rates 2023: Delhi market rates of April 2023, with GST at 18% included in item rates but not in basic material rates. Treat them as indicative. Listing prices are a market range: the middle half of seller asking prices on IndiaMART category pages read on 29 Oct 2026. Sellers rarely say whether GST, delivery or fixing is included. Indoor CNC rates are from Spacewood's 2026 guide. Anything marked "our guidance" is common practice, not a rule.

Jaali design for home: indoor and outdoor materials at a glance

Material	Where it works
MDF or HDHMR, CNC-cut	Partitions, mandir fronts, wardrobe and door panels
PVC or WPC	Kitchen, bathroom, covered balcony
Acrylic	Backlit panels indoors
Solid wood	Doors, traditional screens
Brick (honeycomb)	Stair walls, utility and service yards, boundary walls
Terracotta blocks	Balconies, facades, courtyards
Concrete or GRC	Front elevation, stair, parapet
Stone	Entrances, heritage-style facades
MS, corten, aluminium or ACP, laser-cut	Balcony screens, gates, facade skins

For the indoor materials this follows Spacewood's CNC jali guide, which calls MDF indoor only and suggests PVC or WPC for balconies and metal for exterior elevations. The rest is our guidance.

Indoor jaali: MDF, wood, PVC, acrylic and metal

Indoors a jaali is cut from a board, usually 6, 12 or 18 mm thick, by CNC router or laser (Spacewood). Because the board is thin, the pattern does the work: an open pattern marks a boundary, a dense one hides what is behind it.

Black and white photo of a large laser-cut panel with a bold pattern of leaves and fronds standing behind a pale leather sofa with one dark cushion, with the room beyond visible through the cut-outs. — An indoor laser-cut panel behind a sofa: a big, open pattern like this marks off a seating area without blocking light. Image: Paul Raymond on Pexels, Pexels License

Our partition design guide for living rooms and halls (in draft) covers CNC partitions and fixing, and our pooja room door designs guide (in draft) covers jaali doors, so here are only the points that change by room:

Jali design for mandir and pooja room: keep a jaali or open panel in the top third of the door or front so lamp and incense smoke can escape (our guidance).
Jali design for kitchen: use PVC, WPC or metal near the sink and hob, not MDF, which swells if it gets wet (Spacewood). Keep any jaali well clear of the flame (our guidance).
Jaali design for door: a jaali panel in a solid frame, with glass behind it to stop dust. Glass stops air too, so leave part open (our guidance).
Jali design for wall: a panel fixed a little off the wall with LED strips behind it casts a pattern without any opening (our guidance).

Outdoor jaali: brick, terracotta, concrete, stone and metal

Outdoors the jaali is part of the wall: it must take wind, shed rain and need little care. Building materials that suit your climate are covered in our guide to building materials by climate and region; these are the jaali versions.

Brick jaali design

A honeycomb brick wall leaves a gap between bricks in each course, staggered course by course. CPWD lists it as item 6.23, "honey-comb brick work" 10 to 11.4 cm thick in common burnt clay bricks with 1:4 cement mortar, at ₹711.50 per sq m, about ₹66 per sq ft, built. It is the cheapest jaali here.

Close view of a red brick jaali wall: bricks laid in staggered courses with a gap between each pair, so bright daylight shows through rows of rectangular openings and the perforated bed faces of the bricks are visible inside each gap. — A honeycomb brick jaali: each opening is as deep as the wall, which is why brick shades better than a thin sheet. Savar, Dhaka. Image: Monirul Hoque Shraban on Pexels, Pexels License

Our guidance: a half-brick jaali is a screen, not a load-bearing wall, so keep panels short between piers and let your engineer size them.

Terracotta jali design and price

Terracotta jaali blocks are mostly 8 by 8 inches and about 2.5 inches deep, laid like bricks. On IndiaMART's terracotta jali page, the middle half of 28 priced listings asked ₹40 to ₹65 per piece, most from Morbi and Wankaner makers. At about two blocks per sq ft with joints (our arithmetic), that is roughly ₹80 to ₹130 per sq ft for blocks alone, before mortar, labour and GST. For finishes that sit well beside brick and terracotta, see our lime plaster and traditional finishes guide.

Looking up at a tall facade made entirely of small square terracotta openings in a fine even grid, with a pale concrete coping along the top and a clear blue sky above. — A whole facade of small square terracotta-red openings in a fine grid: the rooms behind are screened and the building still breathes. Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Image: Pedro Hypólito on Pexels, Pexels License

Concrete and GRC jali price list

Precast slabs: CPWD item 5.18 prices a precast 1:2:4 cement concrete jali reinforced with 1.6 mm wire, including fixing in cement mortar, at ₹1,539 per sq m for 25 mm, ₹1,706.55 for 40 mm and ₹1,886.90 for 50 mm, or about ₹143, ₹159 and ₹175 per sq ft. Breeze blocks: on IndiaMART's concrete jali page, 200 by 200 mm blocks 60 to 65 mm deep were mostly listed at ₹50 to ₹85 a piece.

A wall of grey precast concrete breeze blocks, each square block with a square opening framed by a stepped square border, laid in a straight grid so dark openings repeat across the whole wall. — Precast concrete breeze blocks laid in a straight grid. They are bought by the piece, stack into a wall and need no separate frame. Image: Timothy Huliselan on Pexels, Pexels License

GRC (glass fibre reinforced concrete) is thinner and takes finer patterns, so it is the usual choice for a cast jaali on a front elevation. On IndiaMART's GRC jali page for Mumbai, the middle half of 26 priced listings asked ₹300 to ₹450 per sq ft, in thicknesses from 15 to 50 mm.

Stone jaali

CPWD item 7.33 prices a 40 mm stone jali fixed in cement mortar at ₹14,931.55 per sq m for red sandstone and ₹14,994.15 for white sandstone, about ₹1,390 per sq ft. At that price, stone suits an entrance panel more than a whole wall; our natural stone guide compares sandstone with other stones.

Metal jaali: MS, corten, aluminium and ACP

A laser-cut sheet gives the thinnest jaali and the freest pattern. On IndiaMART's MS jali cutting services page, the middle half of 29 priced listings asked ₹100 to ₹280 per sq ft, but many are cutting job work only, so ask whether the sheet, frame, paint and fixing are included. Spacewood gives ₹500 to ₹1,200 and up per sq ft for a powder-coated metal jaali.

Corner of a building clad in pale grey perforated metal panels with rows of round holes, set against a clear blue sky. — Perforated metal panels wrapping a facade. Hole size and pitch set the open area, and the panels hide the windows behind them by day. Image: Esra Nur Kalay on Pexels, Pexels License

Our guidance on the metal: mild steel needs galvanising or a good paint system outdoors; corten weathers to a stable rust but stains the floor and wall below it for the first years; aluminium does not rust and suits upper floors; ACP is light but check for a fire-rated core. Near the sea, choose aluminium, stainless steel or a non-metal jaali, as our guide to building near the sea explains for all exposed metal.

How a jaali shades and ventilates

The BIS handbook SP 41 sizes shading louvers by the ratio of their spacing to their projection. In its Table 9, for the northern region, horizontal members on a south face spaced at 1.73 times their projection completely cut off summer sun and allow winter sun indoors. On east and west faces it recommends an egg-crate (horizontal and vertical members together), with horizontal members at 0.84 times the projection.

A jaali is a small egg-crate whose depth is the projection, so a deep jaali shades better than a thin one with the same openings:

Two vertical sections drawn to one scale. A: a half-brick honeycomb jaali wall 114 mm deep with openings about 85 mm high; a 60 degree sun ray is stopped by the brick below the opening, a dashed line at about 37 degrees marks the cut-off from corner to corner of an opening, and a 20 degree low sun ray passes straight through into the room; a dotted line on the room side marks an insect mesh in a removable frame. B: a thin 25 mm precast concrete jaali with 75 mm openings, where the 60 degree ray passes through. A note gives the BIS SP 41 spacing ratios of 1.73 for south faces and 0.84 for east and west. — Why depth matters: a 114 mm brick jaali blocks sun steeper than about 37°, while a 25 mm jaali lets 60° sun through. Ratios from BIS SP 41; openings illustrative; mesh note is our guidance. Diagram: MOA

A half-brick jaali 114 mm deep with openings about 85 mm high blocks direct sun higher than about 37° (our geometry). Its openings are under 0.84 times its depth, which matches SP 41's east and west spacing for the horizontal members (our reading of the table).
A 25 mm precast jaali would need openings of about 21 mm to do the same. With normal 75 mm openings it stops only sun above about 72°, so it shades mainly by its solid share, not its depth.
Low east and west sun passes through almost any jaali; add vertical members there (our guidance).

For air, the open area counts, and jaalis on opposite sides of a room, or one low and one high, move more air than one screen (our guidance).

Open area ratio and privacy

Open area is the share of a jaali that is hole. Banaraswala Wire Mesh gives the formulas: 90.69 × (d ÷ p)² per cent for round holes on a 60° stagger, and 100 × (a ÷ p)² per cent for square holes in straight rows, where d is the hole diameter, a the hole side and p the pitch. We applied them to four common patterns:

Four square samples of jaali, each 400 by 400 mm and drawn to one scale: a perforated metal sheet with 20 mm round holes on a 40 mm staggered pitch, 23% open; a honeycomb brick jaali of 230 mm bricks with 115 mm gaps in staggered courses, 33% open; a concrete or terracotta grid with 75 mm square openings at 100 mm centres, 56% open; and a slim CNC lattice with 60 mm openings and 10 mm bars, 73% open, each with a bar showing the open share and a note on privacy. — Open area ratio for four common jaali patterns, worked out with a perforated-sheet maker's formulas. The patterns are illustrative; the less open, the more private and shaded. Diagram: MOA

As a rule of thumb (our guidance): under about 30% open reads as a near-solid screen; 30 to 50% balances privacy and breeze; above 50% marks a boundary without hiding much. Privacy flips at night: a street-facing jaali hides the room by day, but a lit room shows through it after dark.

Jali design for balcony

A balcony jaali faces weather on one side and a living room on the other. Our guidance:

Open balcony: terracotta, concrete, GRC, aluminium or coated MS. Covered: PVC or WPC too.
Keep the lower 1 m or so as a solid parapet or a dense jaali, so children cannot climb it, and check your local bye-laws for railing height.
Use a pattern below 50% open on a street-facing side for privacy, and a more open one facing a garden.

Close view of a pale grey laser-cut metal screen with a pattern of overlapping circles and small hexagons, with sunlit trees, autumn leaves and a paved path blurred behind it. — A laser-cut metal panel used as a garden screen: a thin sheet like this shades mainly by its solid share, and the view stays readable through it. Image: Vlad Chețan on Pexels, Pexels License

For the balcony as a whole, including plants, see vastu for balconies, terraces and gardens.

Jali design for front elevation and exterior

On a front, one jaali panel at the stair or over a balcony does more than jaali everywhere (our guidance). Our house front elevation design guide and window grill design guide (both in draft) cover composition, setbacks and escape openings.

Three panels of white cement breeze blocks between beige pillars, each block a square with a triangular opening, with green leaves of a climbing plant growing through the openings of the middle panel. — White cement blocks with triangular openings: half of each block is solid, so the screen hides more than a square grid while air still moves through. Vietnam. Image: Gia Minh on Pexels, Pexels License

Rain, dust, insects and birds

All of this is our guidance, as we found no Indian standard that covers it for homes.

Rain: driving rain comes through any jaali. Slope each opening's sill outward and give the floor behind a fall and a drain, or put glazing behind it.
Dust: every ledge collects it; deep brick jaalis most, smooth GRC and metal least.
Insects: a jaali does not stop mosquitoes. Fit insect mesh in a removable frame on the room side, as in the section above, and only where you need it, because mesh cuts airflow.
Birds: openings deeper than they are high, and above about 100 mm, invite pigeons to nest. Smaller openings or a mesh behind the jaali keep them out.

Maintenance by material

Spacewood advises dusting MDF and wood with a dry or barely damp cloth, wiping PVC and WPC with mild soap, checking exterior metal coatings yearly for rust, and using a soft brush or vacuum on fine laser-cut work. Our guidance for outdoor jaalis: hose down terracotta, concrete and brick once a year before the monsoon, treat algae on shaded faces, and repaint MS wherever rust shows at the cut edges.

CNC jali price and jaali price per sq ft

Jaali	Price per sq ft	What it covers
Honeycomb brick, 10 to 11.4 cm	About ₹66	Built, with mortar, GST included (CPWD 6.23)
Precast concrete jali, 25 / 40 / 50 mm	About ₹143 / ₹159 / ₹175	Supplied and fixed, GST included (CPWD 5.18)
Red or white sandstone jali, 40 mm	About ₹1,390	Supplied and fixed, GST included (CPWD 7.33)
WPC jali board, 18 mm	About ₹216	Material only, before GST and fixing (CPWD basic rate 5760, ₹2,320 per sq m)
Terracotta blocks, 8 x 8 in	About ₹80 to ₹130	Blocks only, from ₹40 to ₹65 a piece (IndiaMART)
Concrete breeze blocks, 200 x 200 mm	About ₹100 to ₹175	Blocks only, from ₹50 to ₹85 a piece (IndiaMART)
GRC jali	₹300 to ₹450	Seller asking prices, Mumbai (IndiaMART)
MS jali laser cutting	₹100 to ₹280	Often cutting only (IndiaMART)
MDF / PVC or WPC / acrylic, CNC	₹200 to ₹350 / ₹250 to ₹450 / ₹350 to ₹700	Cutting and basic finish (Spacewood)
Solid wood / metal, CNC	₹700 to ₹1,500+ / ₹500 to ₹1,200+	Metal includes powder coat (Spacewood)

Block figures per sq ft are our arithmetic at about two blocks per sq ft. We found no published rate for POP jaalis or ACP jaali panels that we could cite. For a whole-house budget, try MOA's free home cost calculator.

FAQ

What is the price of CNC jali per sq ft?

Spacewood's 2026 guide gives ₹200 to ₹350 for MDF, ₹250 to ₹450 for PVC or WPC, ₹350 to ₹700 for acrylic and ₹500 to ₹1,200 and up for powder-coated metal, for cutting and basic finishing. MS laser cutting listings on IndiaMART mostly ask ₹100 to ₹280.

Which jali is best for the exterior of a house?

Brick, terracotta, concrete, GRC, stone or coated metal. MDF and acrylic are indoor only.

Which jali design is best for a balcony?

Terracotta, GRC or aluminium on an open balcony, PVC or WPC where it is covered, with a pattern under about 50% open where you want privacy (our guidance).

Does a jaali let rain in?

Yes, in driving rain. Slope each opening's sill outward and give the floor behind it a fall and a drain, or add glazing behind the jaali.

Planning a jaali on your front, balcony or stair? Find an architect on MOA, or an interior designer for indoor screens, and filter the directory by your city.

Sources

CPWD: Delhi Schedule of Rates 2023, Volume 1 (items 5.18, 6.23, 7.33; basic rate 5760; preface notes on April 2023 rates and GST) (accessed 29 Oct 2026)
Bureau of Indian Standards: SP 41:1987, Handbook on Functional Requirements of Buildings, via Public.Resource.Org (section 3.4 and Table 9, shading devices) (accessed 29 Oct 2026)
Banaraswala Wire Mesh: How to Calculate Open Area in Perforated Sheets (17 Aug 2026) (accessed 29 Oct 2026)
Spacewood: CNC Jali Design Ideas for Every Room: Patterns, Materials and a Price Guide (accessed 29 Oct 2026)
IndiaMART: Terracotta Jali listings (accessed 29 Oct 2026)
IndiaMART: Concrete Jali listings (accessed 29 Oct 2026)
IndiaMART: GRC Jali in Mumbai listings (accessed 29 Oct 2026)
IndiaMART: MS Jali Cutting Services listings (accessed 29 Oct 2026)
Pexels: photos by Monirul Hoque Shraban, Pedro Hypólito, Timothy Huliselan, Gia Minh, Esra Nur Kalay, Vlad Chețan and Paul Raymond, Pexels License (accessed 29 Oct 2026)