LDA plans to acquire farmland at up to four times circle rate for IT City and Varun Vihar, Lucknow

What the LDA is proposing

The Lucknow Development Authority plans to acquire land for two residential and township schemes: the IT City project on Sultanpur Road and the Varun Vihar scheme. The approach combines land pooling with acquisition. Under pooling, landowners give up their land and receive developed plots allotted under the scheme. Owners who do not come forward for pooling may be subject to acquisition.

LDA vice-chairperson Prathamesh Kumar is quoted in the report on this approach. The stated strategy is to maximise the land secured through pooling with the consent of farmers, and to use acquisition only as a fallback.

The report puts the land need at roughly 1,000 acres for the scheme. About 100 acres of government land is counted within the overall mix, and some land has already been secured through pooling.

Compensation terms as reported

The report ties compensation for acquired land to the circle rate, the official rate that the state uses for land values. Higher multiples apply to rural plots than to urban plots.

The report does not set out a single fixed rupee amount per acre. The actual payment for any plot depends on its circle rate and whether it is classed as rural or urban.

Where the IT City scheme already stands

The IT City project has moved through several stages since the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet first approved the Chak Gajaria farm land for an IT and multi-use precinct in April 2013. The LDA released the layout plan and master map on 28 February 2026, fixing sector boundaries, the road hierarchy and the pooling framework.

• Phase 1 notified area: 686.66 hectares (about 1,696 acres) under the land-pooling scheme.
• Phase 1 lottery on 10 March 2026 allotted 549 developed residential plots across Sectors 15, 16, 17, 18 and 30.
• Phase 2 lottery on 22 May 2026 allotted 415 plots.
• On 22 October 2026, the LDA announced Rs 100 crore for development of the villages covered by the IT City project.
• In early October 2026, the LDA proposed to the District Magistrate that about 300 hectares be acquired from owners who have not opted for pooling.

Scheme area figures in published reports vary. The LDA's own layout figure for the total IT City scheme is about 3,490 acres, while some earlier reports cite 2,660 to 2,858 acres for an older project scope.

What it means for the city

For Sultanpur Road, the plan is about bringing more land into a single planned township. The core anchor is the 100-acre HCLTech campus inside the IT City Special Economic Zone, which has been operational since 2016 and houses more than 6,500 employees in IT services and engineering roles. Land assembly for the wider scheme is intended to extend that employment base into a larger residential and commercial area.

The 11 villages in Mohanlalganj tehsil covered by the IT City scheme are Rakibabad, Sonai, Kajehra, Bhatwara, Moharikhurd, Sikandarpur Amolia, Bakkas, Pahadnagar Tikaria, Siddhpura, Parheta and Khujaili. For landowners in these villages, the choice between pooling and acquisition, and the compensation or plot allotment that follows, is the most direct effect of the plan.

For the wider city, the scheme adds housing supply and new road and utility networks along the corridor, but the timing of this supply depends on how fast the remaining land is secured.

What comes next

• A formal acquisition notification has not yet been cited in the report. The land-assembly process will move forward once acquisition steps are taken for owners who do not opt for pooling.
• A proposal to stay land registry (sale and purchase) transactions across the 11 villages was sent to the state government in August 2026 after the District Magistrate gave consent. It remains a proposal awaiting state notification.
• The final area and public-sale timeline for the wider township are still being firmed up.

Buyers, owners and investors should follow LDA notifications directly for the status of any specific plot or village.