New Shillong Township: Land Acquisition Status

Acquisition model: negotiated purchase, not a single mass award

New Shillong Township has not been built through one LARR-style compulsory acquisition with a single award. Instead, the New Shillong Township Development Agency (NSTDA) — earlier the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority (MUDA) — has bought land parcel by parcel over three decades, largely by inviting willing sellers.

Land was acquired from 11 landowners in 1995-1996, 5 landowners in 1997-1998, 7 landowners in 2003-2004, 7 landowners in 2006-2007, and 1 landowner in 2021-2022. This drip-feed pattern continued into 2024-2025: an NSTDA notice invited landowners to offer or sell their land in these areas, submitting proposals along with photo-copies of land documents, survey map of the plot as well as offered rates in a sealed envelope, with the rate to be quoted per square foot, square metre or acre.

A separate August 2025 notice sought roughly 10-acre plots specifically for setting up of a CRPF Camp in addition to the already acquired land at Mawkhanu, Mawpdang, Mawdiangdiang, Umsawli and Tynring, again through owners submitting offered rates rather than a fixed government award. Because East Khasi Hills falls under the Sixth Schedule, tribal community (raid/hima) land has legal protections, and landowners' associations have argued the state must also secure Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) consent — a point of continuing friction rather than a settled procedure.

Villages and areas covered

All acquisition for New Shillong falls within East Khasi Hills district; there is no multi-district spread. The township was proposed to be set up near Mawdiangdiang, spread across an area of 20.3 square kilometers, to ease urban congestion in Shillong.

Key localities where land has been acquired or allotted include Mawdiangdiang (Administrative City core, IIM Shillong campus), Umsawli (new Secretariat site), Mawkasiang, Mawkhanu and Mawpdang (Knowledge City), Diengiong, Mawtari and Tynring (corridor land). Lands allotted from 2003 onwards to various entities are located in areas like Mawdiangdiang, Diengiong, Umsawli Mawpat, Mawtari and Mawkasiang all of which lie north of the main city of Shillong.

The most contested expansion covers a wider swathe: the government sought to expand the township by acquiring 2,000 acres of community land falling under Raid Tunring and Raid Mawpdang, which would directly affect at least 2,000 households in 16 villages, 90 per cent of which rely on agricultural activities for livelihood.

Compensation rates

No single, current per-acre compensation figure for farmer land in New Shillong has been published in recent official disclosures reviewed for this page. What is on record instead:

• Recent NSTDA land-procurement notices ask landowners to name their own asking price — plots should be 10 acres and above, with owners submitting offered rates in a sealed envelope, quoted per square foot/square metre/acre — meaning rates are negotiated case-by-case rather than fixed by a published schedule.
• In July 2024 the state cabinet fixed land rates, but these applied to the government leasing/allotting NST Phase-II and Mawkhanu land onward to state, central and private entities — not to compensation paid to original landowners. The state government finalized the land rates in the New Shillong Township phase-II and Mawkhanu area, with rates finalised for other state departments, central departments and private sectors so the government is able to generate revenue.
• Older, contested claims (2018 reporting, not verified independently and disputed by the government) alleged historically low payouts to original tribal sellers compared with rates given to allottees; these figures are decades old and are not treated here as current rates.

Because no verified, dated per-acre compensation rate for current-day acquisition has been found in reporting, this page does not state one. It will be updated if NSTDA or the state government publishes an official compensation schedule.

Budget and spending

An RTI response cited by local media in October 2024 gives the clearest official financial picture to date. The state government has collected a total of Rs 83.07 crore in premiums from land deals in the New Shillong Township, while it has spent over Rs 331 crore on land acquisition in the area to date. An RTI report revealed that the New Shillong Township Development Agency has received Rs 297.97 crore from the Urban Affairs department for the township's development.

The government collected a premium of Rs 83.07 crore from 38 departments to which land was allotted in NST, and the RTI also confirmed that no loans have been taken from HUDCO for financing the projects in the area.

On top of land-acquisition spending, individual buildings within the township carry their own budgets: the new Secretariat complex in Umsawli is estimated at ₹1,188 crore, to be built on a 53-acre plot and executed in phases, while the proposed Unity Mall — on roughly 17 acres — has an estimated cost as per the DPR of Rs 431 crore.

Disputes and farmer grievances

The largest documented conflict concerns the proposed 2,000-acre expansion into Raid Tunring and Raid Mawpdang land. Claiming that the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority surveyed the land without the permission of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC), a Sohryngkham MDC urged all 30 MDCs to oppose the expansion, and the KHADC's Chief Executive Member assured he would issue an executive order prohibiting land acquisition without the consent of the KHADC executive committee.

Underlying this is a legal ambiguity: the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, does not particularly protect community lands or let District Councils block state acquisition, yet it does require the state or Union government to take prior consent of District Councils to acquire land in their jurisdiction.

At the household level, older but still-cited reporting describes individual families in the acquisition zone whose houses were demolished 3 times – in 2007, in 2009 and in 2013 – and who never got compensation for the lost land, with a case registered in the early 1990s by the village collective still going on in the Meghalaya High Court. Separately, critics have alleged irregularities in how land was transferred to non-tribal or institutional allottees, pointing to Sixth Schedule and Land Transfer Act, 1971 concerns; these claims remain contested and have not been independently adjudicated in the sources reviewed.

More broadly, land governance in Khasi Hills has come under renewed debate: in mid-2026 the KHADC passed a Regulation and Administration of Land (Amendment) Bill that stripped the Dorbar Shnong and Himas of their mandatory consultative role in land ceiling matters by deleting a provision that had made it compulsory for the Executive Committee to consult local traditional bodies before implementing land ceiling measures. This is not specific to New Shillong but shapes the wider context in which any future NST land dealings in Khasi Hills villages will occur.

Current stage (as of November 2025)

New Shillong remains an active, incrementally expanding acquisition project rather than a closed one. The vision for New Shillong Township was conceived in the 1990s when land was first acquired for the project, and even after nearly three decades and the expenditure of crores of rupees, the township remains in the development stage.

The most recent confirmed move is from November 2025: the Meghalaya Cabinet approved the acquisition of additional land at Tynring in the New Shillong Township for a corridor connecting the Administrative City with the Knowledge City, with an additional 35 acres proposed for acquisition to facilitate relocation of the Central Jail to New Shillong. Ahead of that, in August 2025, NSTDA had already issued a public notice inviting owners to sell roughly 10-acre plots around Mawkhanu, Mawpdang, Mawdiangdiang, Umsawli and Tynring for a CRPF camp. Earlier in 2024, the state fixed lease/allotment land rates for NST Phase-II and Mawkhanu to speed up bringing in state, central and private users. Taken together, these point to a project still acquiring and allotting land parcel-by-parcel, with the Administrative City (Secretariat, foundation laid January 2025) and Knowledge City zones furthest along, and connectivity/corridor and security-related land purchases the current focus.