Khurpia Industrial Smart City (Kichha IMC): Land Acquisition Status

Acquisition model: a government land transfer, not a private-land LARR case

Khurpia Industrial Smart City does not follow the typical private-farmer consent/award model used under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (RFCTLARR), 2013. The Khurpia farm, leased by Keshar Enterprises, occupies an area of approximately 2,500 acres and comprises five revenue villages -- Khurpiya, Bandia, Devriya, Gorikala and Bhuragori. In 2012, the Uttarakhand high court asked the state government to take possession of the land. Four years later, the government passed an order that a State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand Limited (SIDCUL) industrial estate will be set up on 1,002.15 acres on the farm.

The 2024 decision to advance the smart-city project involved a further administrative transfer of this already state-controlled land to SIDCUL for project execution. This land transfer to SIDCUL was described by District Magistrate Udayraj Singh as a critical step toward actualizing the smart industrial city. Because the land was government-owned (reverted from a private lease), no per-acre farmer compensation rate under RFCTLARR has been reported for the core IMC footprint — this is a land reallocation between government departments, not a market-value purchase from private landowners.

Villages and area covered

The proposed IMC site covers an area of 1,013.386 acres (410.10 ha) spanning Khurpia, Bandiya, Deoria, Gauri Kalan and Bhooragauri — all five are revenue villages within Kichha tehsil, Udham Singh Nagar district. The core SIDCUL-designated industrial estate within this footprint is 1,002.15 acres, the figure most commonly cited in project announcements.

Beyond the industrial estate itself, parts of the same farm have been carved out for other public uses: the construction of a satellite All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on 100 acres, a modern degree college on 14 acres, and a roadways bus stand on 3.5 acres. A separate, adjoining SIDCUL land parcel — Prag Farm, also in Kichha/Udham Singh Nagar — is going through its own transfer and master-planning process, but it is a distinct estate from the Khurpia IMC footprint. Government Order No. 670 dated March 25, 2025, concerned the transfer of 1,354.14 acres of land at Prag Farm in Udham Singh Nagar district to SIDCUL for the development of an industrial estate.

Budget and funding

NICDC lists a project cost of ₹1,265 crore and an investment potential of ₹6,180 crore for the Khurpia IMC, poised to generate over 75,000 jobs. On the state side, Secretary Industries Vinay Shankar stated that Rs 400 crore will be received from the central government to develop Khurpiya Farm, and he described a land holding of Rs 410 crores for the Amritsar Kolkata Corridor being developed on 12 hundred acres of land in Khurpiya.

State political statements have cited larger figures for the wider economic impact: Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has expressed his gratitude to the Prime Minister for the approval of the industrial city in Khurpia Farm in Udhamsingh Nagar district, claiming the move would attract investments of Rs 15,000 crore and generate 50,000 jobs in Uttarakhand. A separate figure of approximately Rs 28,602 crore has been reported for implementing the project, though this figure appears in some reports as the combined estimate for both the Khurpia (Uttarakhand) and Rajpura-Patiala (Punjab) nodes approved in the same Cabinet decision, rather than for Khurpia alone.

Disputes and farmer/landless negotiations

The land underlying the industrial city has a long-running dispute that predates the IMC announcement. This land has been contested by many parties for several years — while the Uttarakhand Rajya Andolankari Bhumiheen Sangthan has been demanding the settlement of landless people on this land, the state is attempting to divert the land for industrial development, on which there is no consensus among the local people, with some favouring it and others objecting to the setting up of industries.

Landless groups want the land to be transferred to them instead under the U.P. Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950, and in 2017, protesters occupied the farm to protest against the government's decision to allocate the land to SIDCUL. The government has floated partial compromises over the years: in December 2019, there were reports of building an airport and smart city while allocating 405 acres to the landless. As of the most recent reporting, no comprehensive resolution of the landless-rights claims alongside the industrial-city plan has been documented.

Current stage (as of late 2025)

The project has moved from Cabinet approval into infrastructure planning. In November 2025, Secretary Industry Vinay Shankar Pandey inspected the Khurpia Farm site with SIIDCUL's general manager to determine how to develop its infrastructure on the 1,002-acre plot. Around the same period, the Central government's announced industrial smart city in Khurpia Farm under the Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor carried an estimated implementation cost of approximately Rs 28,602 crore (a figure spanning the two nodes approved in that Cabinet round). Master-plan design and consultancy tenders for the adjoining Prag Farm SIDCUL estate were also active in the same period, indicating that detailed planning for the Kichha-area industrial nodes, including Khurpia, is at the design and site-development stage rather than at plot allotment or construction.