Land Pooling: How the Town Planning Model Eases Land Acquisition

Rajasthan recently announced its first land pooling scheme, joining a growing list of states turning to this model to assemble land for roads, public amenities and urban development. Several other states are also weighing similar schemes. The shift reflects a basic problem: traditional land acquisition for infrastructure has become slow, contested and expensive, leaving a wide gap between planned projects and what actually gets built.

A large part of this difficulty stems from the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. Even before this law, acquisition was time-consuming and often disputed. After 2013, the added rehabilitation and resettlement obligations raised the financial cost of large acquisitions, making them increasingly unviable for cities trying to expand their infrastructure.

Land pooling offers a different route. Instead of the government compulsorily taking land and paying compensation, landowners voluntarily pool their plots. The authority develops the area with roads, drainage, parks and other amenities, and then returns to each owner a smaller but better-serviced and more valuable plot. The most successful form is the Town Planning (TP) scheme, widely used in Gujarat and Maharashtra. Under it, owners typically contribute about 25 to 40 per cent of their land for public infrastructure and housing for weaker sections, and get back the remaining 60 to 75 per cent as well-shaped, reconstituted plots.

The model has clear strengths. It is participatory and people-centric, reduces displacement compared with forced acquisition, and shares the gains of development more fairly. It is also financially self-sustaining, because betterment charges are recovered from rising land values during development rather than paid upfront by the government. Gujarat formalised the approach under its Town Planning and Urban Development Act, 1976, and has since planned over 1,000 sq km across cities like Ahmedabad, Surat and Gandhinagar. The central government has actively promoted TP schemes since 2019. However, success is not automatic: places like Guwahati struggled because of unclear rules on land-sharing percentages, weak institutional roles, and the absence of digitised land records.

For aspirants, land pooling is a high-value topic across Polity, Governance and Economy. It tests understanding of the 2013 Land Acquisition Act, the federal nature of urban planning (a State subject), the difference between compulsory acquisition and voluntary pooling, and the importance of digitised land records and institutional capacity. It is also a strong example to cite in essays and answers on urban infrastructure and equitable development.