Mountain City (Jathia Devi Township), Shimla — HIMUDA's Counter-Magnet Project

What Mountain City Is

Mountain City — officially the Jathia Devi Township, and also referred to as the Shimla Counter-Magnet Township or Jubbarhatti Airport Township — is a planned satellite city on a plateau near Jubbarhatti Airport, about 14 km from Shimla. The main objective of the satellite township is to decongest the state capital of Shimla by shifting some government offices and setting up housing societies. It is pitched as an ultra-modern city with state-of-the-art infrastructure, incorporating advanced seismic technology.

Who Is Building It

The Himachal Pradesh Housing and Urban Development Authority (HIMUDA) is the implementing agency, working under the state's Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department. In 2023, the state government sent a Rs 1,374 crore proposal to the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Development for the satellite township but no funds were provided, forcing the state government to take up the project in the PPP mode. Town and Country Planning Minister Rajesh Dharmani chairs HIMUDA's board and has been the public face of the project's recent review meetings.

Official Notified Area and Villages

The Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department created the Jathia Devi Planning Area by excluding 177 villages from the Shimla Planning Area, under a notification issued on 23 January 2024. The 106 villages earlier falling under the Shimla Planning Area, 21 villages under the Shoghi Special Area, and 50 villages that were part of Kandaghat tehsil in Solan district were excluded to create the new Jathia Devi Planning Area, done under Section 66 and Section 13 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1977. These areas had originally been folded into the Shimla Planning Area in 2007 and 2000.

Within this larger planning area, the actual footprint HIMUDA has been assembling for construction is much smaller. HIMUDA has already acquired two chunks of 350 bighas and 250 bighas at Jathia Devi for the township. A wider figure has also been cited for the eventual scale of the project: the proposed Jathia Devi township, estimated to cost Rs 1,374 crore, requires over 3,000 hectares of land.

Why It Exists

As a result of increased urbanisation, Shimla is currently experiencing issues with traffic, water scarcity, landslides, pollution of lakes and streams, damage to scenic attractiveness, and visual blight. Mountain City is the state's attempt at a structural fix rather than piecemeal repairs. The project is being considered under a Public-Private Partnership model and aims to reduce congestion in the state capital by decentralizing administrative functions and housing development, with the key objective of decongesting Shimla by relocating various government offices and creating planned housing societies in the new area. The idea long predates the current push: efforts to set up a satellite township during the earlier Congress regime under Virbhadra Singh in 2012–17 did not fructify, although an agreement had been signed with a Singapore-based company to help Himachal set up the township.

A History of False Starts

The site has been earmarked for a township for close to a decade, under three different plans. With the National Green Tribunal (NGT) restricting construction in the Greater Shimla Planning Area, HIMUDA decided to abandon an earlier modern township project at Jathiadevi and instead carve out plots and construct flats; the state government had signed an MoU with Singapore on 27 February 2017 for constructing the township. The project never took off as the NGT restricted construction to two and a half floors, which made the project economically unviable. The Singapore memorandum of understanding was scrapped in August 2019.

The project was relaunched in 2023. HIMUDA received the green light from its Board of Directors to acquire land for the new township 'Mountain City', near Jubbarhatti airport, as a counter-magnet city to decongest Shimla city. Around the same time, Himachal also tried for central money: Himachal was competing with Sikkim, Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh to get funding under a central mountain township scheme. That did not come through either, so the state pivoted again — this time to a mix of PPP financing and a scaled-down phased build-out.

Current Status (as of August 2026)

Momentum has picked up in 2026 after years of stalling. The Cabinet has granted permission for the preparation of a detailed project report (DPR) of the proposed Jathia Devi Mountain township by relaxing the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Rules, 2014. The Cabinet approved the project subject to conditions such as no tree being cut at the site without prior Forest Department approval, environment-clearance NOC being submitted before construction begins, and NIT or IIT vetting the geo-technical investigation and structural design report. In July 2026 the Cabinet also granted permission for the development of the Jathia Devi Mountain City project, a move expected to promote planned urban development and investment in the region.

A concrete first phase has been outlined: in the first phase of the Jathia Devi project, HIMUDA will develop 919 residential units on 21 bighas of land with an estimated investment of Rs 1,327 crore, aimed at reducing pressure on Shimla city by shifting residential growth to peripheral areas. It has now been proposed that the township will have 21 bungalows, 73 villas, 31 residential apartment blocks (eight-storey, with parking), five apartment blocks (11-storey, with parking) and six commercial buildings. Separately, a smaller parcel has already gone into the environmental-clearance pipeline: HIMUDA has proposed development of the Jathia Devi Township project over 20.35 hectares with a total built-up area of 1,85,650.75 sq m and an estimated cost of ₹568.75 crore, for which environmental clearance is being sought.

Land Acquisition and Local Opposition

Land assembly beyond the initial acquired chunks remains the project's biggest bottleneck. Though still at a nascent stage, the Cabinet on 19 January gave its approval in principle, and the process of identifying land has begun; so far, 3,428 bighas of land have been identified, while over 5,000 bighas from common land pools are also being considered.

This has run into resistance from residents whose land and villages fall inside the expanded footprint. Land acquisition notices have been issued following a Social Impact Assessment study, and public opposition has emerged as a major roadblock. Residents from nine villages — Shilibhaghi, Anji, Majhola, Chanal, Panti, Danukhri, Shirdu, Kyari in Shimla district and Majhiyari in Solan district — have vehemently opposed the project, and more than 500 villagers attended a public hearing at the site on 29 December 2025, submitting written objections against the acquisition. Funding has been another persistent constraint: compounding the challenge is the difficulty in securing central funding.

Connectivity

The site's main locational advantage is its adjacency to Himachal's only airport near the capital. Shimla Airport (IATA: SLV) is a regional airport located in Jubbarhatti, 22 kilometres from Shimla. The airport's single table-top runway, built by leveling a mountaintop, spans 1,230 metres and sits at an elevation of 1,546 metres above sea level, making it one of India's more challenging airstrips. Only regional flights, especially connecting Delhi to Shimla, usually operate here, while travellers from more distant parts of India generally fly into Chandigarh Airport before proceeding to Shimla by road. Road access to the township site itself is via the Shimla–Jubbarhatti corridor; no dedicated bus or rail link to the proposed township exists yet.

What Happens Next

With the Cabinet's DPR and development approvals now in place (mid-2026), the near-term milestones to watch are: finalisation of the detailed project report and PPP developer selection; environmental clearance for the parcels already before regulators; resolution — or escalation — of the land disputes in the nine objecting villages; and whether the state can attract private capital given the funding gaps that sank the Singapore-era and central-scheme attempts. HIMUDA's chairman has emphasised prioritising the commencement of work on the available land in the first phase, since initial progress is seen as vital to build public and investor confidence. Until a developer is signed and construction visibly starts on the ground, Mountain City remains a notified planning area and a Cabinet-cleared proposal rather than a township under construction.