The Kutch Earthquake of January 26, 2001 in Gujarat, India, caused the destruction of a large number of modern 4 to 10-storied buildings. After this earthquake, doubts arose about our professional practices, building by-laws, construction materials, building codes and education for civil engineers and architects. It led to large number of short-term courses and workshops, revision of the seismic code, and initiation of a National Programme on Earthquake Engineering Education (NPEEE). Based on an extensive damage survey of the region, comparisons among old and new seismic codes in India and Performance Based Engineering (PBE) based draft codes in US, documents produced under NPEEE, and the unabated popularity of seismically vulnerable constructions in India, this paper gives the prospects for PBE in India. It lists the pre-requisites that made the emergence of PBE possible in California, compares the situation in India and discusses the tasks and difficulties for implementing PBE in India.