Dholera SIR
Core idea
Greenfield smart city in DMIC
Why it matters
Industrial corridor greenfield experiment
Description
Dholera Special Investment Region is a state-promoted greenfield smart city planned from 2009 by the Government of Gujarat on the Gulf of Khambhat, as an anchor node of the Delhi–Mumbai Industrial Corridor. The plan lays out a vast gridded city on largely agricultural land, organised around trunk infrastructure delivered in advance of settlement: expressways, an international airport site, industrial zones and ICT-enabled utilities. Development is phased through a dedicated special-purpose authority, with an activation area built first to attract manufacturing investment.
Significance
Dholera is among the most closely watched experiments in India's smart cities and industrial-corridor programme, exemplifying state-capitalist megaproject urbanism in which the state assembles land and infrastructure ahead of demand. It has provoked sustained debate over land pooling, displacement of farming communities and the speculative character of building cities before inhabitants arrive, making it a key case in critical scholarship on greenfield urbanisation in the Global South.
What shaped it
- World becomes majority urban (2007)
- Global financial crisis (2007–2009)
- Transit-oriented development (TOD) (1993)
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dholera_Special_Investment_Region
- https://dholera.gujarat.gov.in/about_us