BIDA: The Bundelkhand Greenfield Industrial City (Master Plan 2045)

What BIDA Is

The Bundelkhand Industrial Development Authority (BIDA) is a statutory industrial development and planning authority of the Government of Uttar Pradesh, headquartered in Jhansi. It was constituted under the Uttar Pradesh Industrial Area Development Act, 1976 to plan, develop and regulate an integrated industrial and urban township in the Bundelkhand region. BIDA is one of the industrial development authorities operating under the administrative umbrella of the state's Department of Infrastructure and Industrial Development.

The planned city combines industrial, residential, commercial, institutional, logistics and green uses. The state envisions BIDA as a "future investment magnet" modelled on Noida and Greater Noida.

Who Is Building It

The Uttar Pradesh cabinet approved the proposal to establish BIDA in 2023, and the Governor of Uttar Pradesh formally notified the BIDA area on 14 September 2023. The authority held its first board meeting on 4 January 2024 and its second on 28 June 2024.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed the development of key infrastructure, including an airport, expressway, railway station, truck terminal, IT park, and a multimodal logistics park to establish Bundelkhand as a manufacturing and export hub. Day-to-day execution sits with BIDA's own officers; as of mid-2026 the authority's CEO is Sanjay Kumar Khatri, who has been the public face of recent land-acquisition and clearance milestones.

Official Notified Area, Villages and District

The BIDA Master Plan 2045 covers 253.33 km2 (97.81 sq mi), equivalent to 62,599.20 acres, across 33 villages in Jhansi tehsil. This total planning area is distinct from the 56,662 acres approved for phased land acquisition and development.

BIDA plans to acquire 56,662 acres across the same 33 villages in two phases, with the remaining 21,364 acres slated for acquisition in the second phase. The first-phase target itself is 35,298 acres. All 33 villages lie within Jhansi district, Uttar Pradesh — the historic Bundelkhand region straddling UP and Madhya Pradesh.

Why BIDA Exists

The Bundelkhand Industrial Development Authority is the first such industrial development project in 47 years after NOIDA. The region has long been flagged as one of Uttar Pradesh's most economically underdeveloped, and BIDA is the state's flagship attempt to reverse that with a planned, large-scale industrial township rather than piecemeal development.

While industrial development is at the core of BIDA, it will also feed the state's 1 trillion dollar economy target. Chief Minister Adityanath has framed it starkly: "Bundelkhand will no longer represent backwardness but progress. BIDA's success will spark an industrial revolution across the region," Adityanath stated.

Two other mega projects — the Bundelkhand Expressway and the UP Defence Corridor, which have nodes in Jhansi and Chitrakoot districts — are expected to help BIDA emerge as a major industrial hub in North India.

Current Status (as of August 2026)

BIDA is past the notification and clearance stage but has not yet begun visible city construction at scale. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change officially granted environmental clearance to the 'Greenfield Industrial City (BIDA Master Plan-2045)' project in June 2026. The Expert Appraisal Committee examined the project's framework on 30 June 2025, granted a first approval on 20 July 2025, and carried out further technical reviews on 5 March and 9–10 April 2026. A public hearing was held in Jhansi on 22 December 2025, at which local residents expressed broad support for the project.

On land: BIDA has so far acquired a total of 25,706 acres of land, with compensation being provided to landowners at transparent rates under the Act, 2013.

On planning process: the draft Master Plan 2045 was released for public objections and suggestions on 11 April 2025, followed by draft Building Regulations 2045 on 26 April 2025; by October 2025 the master plan had received BIDA board approval, while sector and zonal planning continued.

BIDA has identified a first construction zone: approximately 2,500 acres around Dagarwaha, Rajapur and Bamer villages will form the first 'Activation Area', combining industrial plots with housing, education and other civic facilities. BIDA issued a Request for Proposal in April 2025 to select a consultant for technical and financial feasibility studies and detailed project reports for this Activation Area, spanning 12 infrastructure segments including a 38-kilometre greenfield expressway, power transmission, water supply, sewage treatment and ICT systems. In early August 2026 the UP government cleared a roughly ₹497 crore package to begin building the Activation Area's core infrastructure, including its main gateway.

On utilities, the plan is water-intensive but designed for zero discharge: the city's drinking water requirement of 217.22 MLD will be met from Rajghat Dam, while BIDA will establish a 163.26 MLD Sewage Treatment Plant and a 150.88 MLD Common Effluent Treatment Plant in phases, with no wastewater discharged into the Betwa, Pahuj or Angauri rivers.

Headline Connectivity

BIDA's competitiveness depends heavily on expressway and logistics links still being built. The 296-km-long Bundelkhand Expressway, built at a cost of Rs 14,849 crore through Chitrakoot, Banda, Hamirpur and Jalaun districts, links Bundelkhand to Delhi via the Agra-Lucknow Expressway and Yamuna Expressway.

To connect BIDA and Jhansi directly to that expressway, a new Jhansi-Jalaun Link Expressway spanning approximately 115 kilometres and estimated to cost Rs 1,300 crore is planned. A 115 km stretch will be constructed between Jalaun and Erich, from where it will join the main expressway, creating faster routes to Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, and Eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Further connectivity is proposed but not yet built: at a state-government review in October 2025, proposed regional-connectivity projects included an airport, a railway station and a multimodal logistics park within the BIDA area, a link to the Bundelkhand Expressway, possible extension of the Agra–Gwalior Greenfield Expressway towards Jhansi, and additional capacity on the Delhi–Chennai railway route.

BIDA also sits adjacent to defence-manufacturing infrastructure: a Defence Corridor worth INR 20,000 crore is being established on nearly 3,000 hectares in the Bundelkhand region. A Delhi–Nagpur Industrial Corridor node is also planned within the BIDA region to align with India's broader industrial network.

What Happens Next

The near-term priority is finishing land acquisition. Chief Minister Adityanath has instructed that the remaining land acquisition be completed within six months and that BIDA be adequately staffed to manage the process. BIDA has introduced a digital system tracking every stage of acquisition — from farmer consent to payment — and plans to launch a dedicated farmer call centre.

On the build side, the authority has invited consultants, developers and operators for several proposed components of the industrial city, with its tender archive including expressions of interest for a mixed-use city, an education city and a skill-development centre. Detailed project reports for the Activation Area's roads, power, water and sewage networks are being finalised following the April 2025 consultant tender, with the ₹497 crore infrastructure package approved in August 2026 marking the shift from planning to on-ground construction.

Longer term, expect phased announcements on: completion of Phase 2 land acquisition (21,364 acres); zonal/sector-level plans under Master Plan 2045; firm decisions on the proposed airport, railway station and logistics park; and the first anchor industrial allotments once Activation Area infrastructure is in place.