This paper highlights the need for proper design calculations for estimating the design shear forces in RC beams for earthquake-resistant design and ductile detailing as per IS 13920: 1993. In practice, this is not commonly done due to difficulties in calculating the ultimate moment capacity of doubly reinforced sections having arbitrary combinations of areas of compression and tension steel. To facilitate such computation, design aids are presented, and their use is demonstrated by means of an illustrative example.