Environmental Clearance Granted for IMC Prayagraj by UP SEIAA (10 March 2025)

What was decided

The State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA), Uttar Pradesh, is the state-level body empowered to appraise and clear industrial and infrastructure projects that fall below the size/category thresholds requiring central Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) clearance. SEIAA, Uttar Pradesh granted Environmental Clearance for the IMC Prayagraj project on 10th March, 2025. This clearance is a statutory pre-condition under India's EIA process before any land-clearing, grading, or trunk civil works can lawfully start on the notified project site.

The project and site the clearance covers

IMC Prayagraj is being developed as a node of the Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor (AKIC), which runs along the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor. The Government of India is developing the Amritsar Kolkata Industrial Corridor along the alignment of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor, traversing a route length of 1,839 km in six states, with the EDFC considered its transportation backbone.

The Integrated Manufacturing Cluster (IMC) is sited at Saraswati Hi-Tech City, 25 km south of Prayagraj, and spans 352 acres with a stated investment potential of ₹1,600 crore. It has connectivity to NH-35 and NH-30, rail/EDFC, airports and waterways, with proximity to Prayagraj Airport (24 km) and the New Karchana EDFC Station (7 km).

Programme-tracking reports from NICDC give a slightly different land breakdown: the State Government identified 351 acres — 231 acres greenfield and 120 acres inside Saraswati Hi-Tech City — for the project. The small variance (351 vs. 352 acres) reflects rounding across different reporting cycles; both figures describe the same site.

The project entity holding the clearance

The clearance and subsequent project execution sit with a joint special purpose vehicle set up for both the Agra and Prayagraj AKIC nodes. AKIC Integrated Manufacturing Cluster Agra-Prayagraj Ltd, the SPV, was incorporated on 30th January, 2025. According to Ministry of Corporate Affairs records, the company was incorporated on 30-01-2025 and carries Corporate Identification Number U43900UP2025PLC215997. Its corporate office is located at the UPSIDA Complex, A-14 Lakhanpur, Bima Vihar, Kanpur Nagar, Uttar Pradesh 208024. The company has an authorized share capital of ₹5,00,00,000, with ₹5,00,00,000 paid-up capital.

This SPV structure follows the standard NICDC model in which the state's industrial development authority and NICDIT jointly hold equity. NICDC signed the State Support Agreement (SSA) and the Shareholder Agreement (SHA) with the Uttar Pradesh government and UPSIDA, with UPSIDA anchoring the Agra IMC alongside the Prayagraj node.

Sequence of approvals leading up to the EC

The environmental clearance followed a defined sequence of prior state-level approvals for IMC Prayagraj:

• Shareholder Agreement (SHA) between UPSIDA and NICDIT for IMC Prayagraj was executed on 8th November, 2024.
• State Support Agreement (SSA) between the Government of Uttar Pradesh, UPSIDA and NICDIT for IMC Prayagraj was executed on 8th November, 2024.
• The project SPV, AKIC Integrated Manufacturing Cluster Agra-Prayagraj Ltd, was incorporated on 30th January, 2025.
• SEIAA, Uttar Pradesh granted Environmental Clearance on 10th March, 2025 — roughly six weeks after SPV incorporation.

Practical effect: what the clearance unlocked

The EC removed the principal statutory obstacle to starting site works. Once the clearance and land-parcel confirmation were in place, the SPV moved toward contracting trunk infrastructure: the SPV issued a Letter of Award to the EPC contractor, M/s RCC Developers Pvt Ltd, on 27th October 2025 for trunk infrastructure works, and a kick-off meeting with the EPC contractor was held on 11th February 2026.

Land transfer and equity infusion for the SPV also progressed after the clearance: 351.43 acres of land had been transferred to the Project SPV by the State government and matching equity amounting to ₹323.09 crore had been released by NICDIT to the SPV, as of the May 2026 programme update. Four industrial plots totalling 42 acres had been allotted to investors by that point.

The project also received high-level attention after the clearance stage: it was reviewed by the Prime Minister during the 49th Pragati Meeting on 24th September 2025.

What the clearance does not confirm

This record documents an environmental approval, not physical completion. As of the most recent programme updates available, IMC Prayagraj remains under active trunk-infrastructure execution (post-EPC award and kick-off), not an operational industrial city. Readers should treat land-area figures (351 vs. 352 acres across different reports), equity amounts, and plot-allotment counts as programme-tracker figures subject to periodic revision, and should not assume that clearance of the EC implies that all downstream approvals (e.g., final layout plans, individual plot-level clearances) are complete.