LDA IT City (Sultanpur Road) Master Plan: Area, Phases and Targets

What LDA IT City is, and why it has several names

LDA IT City is a government-backed, integrated smart township on Sultanpur Road (NH-731), conceived as part of the larger CG City (Chak Gajaria City) master plan. The Chak Gajaria link explains the alternate names Chak Gajaria City (CG City) and Chak Gajaria City IT Zone. The Uttar Pradesh government originally decided to develop an IT city, an IT institute, a modern medicity and other facilities on 846.49 acres of Chak Gajaria farm land near Lucknow, with 100 acres transferred to the IT and Electronics department for the IT city component.

The IT SEZ project on Sultanpur Road was awarded to Vama Sundari Investment (Delhi) Pvt Ltd, the business investment arm of HCL Technologies, with an investment of around ₹15 billion, of which ₹5 billion was to be used in the first five years. A 100-acre HCLTech campus within the IT City SEZ has been operational since 2016, accommodating over 6,500 employees across IT services and engineering. The wider IT City has been granted special economic zone (SEZ) status, offering tax incentives to attract IT and ITeS employers.

Planning horizon: no single fixed-year master plan found

Unlike some planned cities that have one master-plan document naming a target year, LDA IT City has developed incrementally through cabinet decisions, tenders, land-pooling drives and revised layout maps. As of July 2026, we found no standalone, dated 'IT City Master Plan' document that names a single completion year for the whole township.

The project instead sits inside the LDA's city-wide planning framework. The Lucknow Master Plan 2031 covers roughly 71,000 hectares and brings in around 197 villages from five tehsils, lifting the urbanised share of the area from about 40 percent to about 70 percent over the plan period. The peripheral belts along Sultanpur Road, among other corridors, are where most of the newly added villages and Outer Ring Road development sit — this is the belt in which IT City is located. Within that horizon, IT City itself has moved through discrete milestones: renewed momentum from 2012 under the Akhilesh Yadav government, and formalisation of a roughly 100-acre proposal by 2013; an LDA development tender issued in February 2025 with bids due March 5, 2025; and construction of grid-road infrastructure beginning in July 2025.

Total area: figures differ by source and by date

Reported totals for the IT City/CG City scheme vary significantly because different sources describe different scope at different points in the project's expansion. The figures found, most recent first:

• Approximately 3,490 acres (≈5,625 Bigha) along the Sultanpur Road corridor, per a March 2026 layout-plan-based guide.
• Approximately 2,858 acres for the IT City project on Sultanpur Road/Kisan Path, per another 2026 source.
• Roughly 2,660 acres, developed under a land-pooling model with nearly 10,000 plots, a 200-acre green belt and a 15-acre water body, per November 2025 reporting ahead of the early-2026 launch.
• Approximately 2,600 to 3,500 acres along Sultanpur Road, per a March 2026 news report on the first lottery.
• 1,696 acres, with Phase 1 allotted in March 2026 (549 plots) — this closely matches the officially cited Phase 1 figure below.

The one figure that is consistent across independent sources is the Phase 1 footprint: the LDA has banned the buying and selling of land in the Phase-1 area (686.66 hectares) of the IT City project, which converts to roughly 1,697 acres — closely matching the 1,696-acre figure above. Readers should treat any single "total area" number for IT City as provisional and check the LDA's current layout map rather than any one blog figure.

Land use and functional zones (no official percentage split found)

No officially published percentage breakdown of land use for IT City itself (e.g., X% residential, Y% industrial) was found. The layout is instead described in named zones and acreages:

• A dedicated IT/ITeS technology cluster of 100 acres (≈161 Bigha) — a ₹1,500 crore PPP investment with HCL Technologies.
• Enterprise zones of 350+ acres reserved strictly for IT/ITeS companies, global business parks and startup incubation centres.
• A residential zone of about 10,000 plots, ranging from roughly 72 to 200 square metres.
• A planned 188-acre central park and a golf course within the master plan, alongside a 200-acre green belt and a 15-acre water body. A later layout revision instead cites 130+ acres reserved as green belt, parks, ponds, orchards and future expansion green zones — the two green-space figures do not match, likely reflecting different layout revisions.
• Beyond the IT cluster, the full CG City scheme also hosts residential plots, group housing, a Central Business District (CBD), IIIT Lucknow, the Medanta-Avadh super-specialty hospital, and an Edutech City.
• A hi-tech skill development centre aiming to train around 5,000 people is also part of the project.

As per the layout dated 7 March 2026, the township is divided into 31 numbered sectors, served by a hierarchical road network from 100-metre master plan corridors down to 9-metre internal service roads.

Phases and current rollout status

IT City is being built through a land-pooling model rather than a single conventional phasing schedule tied to calendar years. Under this consent-based land pooling policy, farmers voluntarily contribute their land for development and receive 25% of the developed land back as residential plots.

Phase 1: Covers 686.66 hectares, where the LDA has banned private buying and selling of land. 549 plots were allotted at a lottery on March 10, 2026, at the Mars Auditorium, Indira Gandhi Pratishthan, in Sectors 15, 16, 17, 18 and 30. Around 336 farmers and landowners were expected to benefit from this first phase.

Phase 2: A second-phase lottery for plot allotment was conducted on May 22, 2026, allotting a total of 415 plots to farmers who had participated in the land pooling scheme. Land can still be bought in the Phase-2 area, but buyers are cautioned to check the exact Gata number and official land records before any deal.

Later phases: The remaining sectors are reserved for upcoming phases including general public plot sales, group housing, commercial and industrial use. The next IT City phase is expected in late 2026 or early 2027, with a similar plot count. Public registration for general buyers is expected to open after allotment letters for the Phase 1 land-pooling participants are finalised.

Population and employment targets

Population: The Lucknow Development Authority has been preparing to introduce its large-scale IT City housing township along Sultanpur Road, designed to accommodate close to one lakh residents. This figure refers to the housing/township component rather than any officially confirmed IT City-wide census target.

Employment: Upon full completion, the project is likely to generate 25,000 direct and 50,000 indirect jobs. A separate account tied to a smaller, earlier-stage 500-acre expression of interest cites a different figure — an EOI floated on December 30, 2024 for roughly 500 acres of IT parks, residential zones and commercial spaces, aiming to catalyse employment estimated at over 100,000 jobs upon completion — so readers should note these job figures come from different scopes and different points in the project's evolution, not one consistent official target.

Planner / consultant

IT City's layout has changed hands during preparation. The Lucknow Development Authority terminated a contract with a Gujarat-based agency in October 2025 to prepare layouts in-house, aimed at avoiding further delays. The LDA has recently opted to finalise the layout in-house instead of relying on an external consultant, stating internally that this shift would expedite approvals.

The current, most detailed sector-wise layout in circulation is credited to a named architect: the official layout plan is drawn by Architect Asheesh Srivastava (Drawing No. ANB/25/UD/ITCITY/AR/02), dated 7 March 2026.

On the investment side, the anchor 100-acre IT/ITeS SEZ cluster is being developed as a PPP with Vama Sundari Investment (Delhi) Pvt Ltd, the business investment arm of HCL Technologies.

Where to find official plan documents

The LDA maintains an IT City project page and a general downloads section for scheme layouts and city plans:

• LDA's official IT City page — describes the project scope and objectives (ldalucknow.in/it-city).
• LDA's Downloads section, which hosts approved layout plans and scheme PDFs (ldaonline.co.in Downloads).
• The city-wide parent document, Lucknow Master Plan 2031 (Mahayojna 2031), is also published in the LDA Downloads section under that name, per guidance to visit the official website www.ldaonline.co.in, navigate to the Downloads section and select "Lucknow Master Plan 2031" to download the PDF.

Because sector numbers, plot lists and area figures for IT City have changed across 2025–2026 revisions, always cross-check any third-party guide or blog against the current dated layout PDF on the official LDA site before relying on it for a transaction.